Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co (和大工業), the nation’s largest manufacturer of gears and shafts for vehicles, motorcycles, trucks and tractors, reported NT$609.77 million (US$21.48 million) in revenue last month, up 17.95 percent from a year earlier and 9.09 percent from December last year.
The increase in revenue reflects a steady recovery in the global auto market, which boosted the company’s shipments of machinery parts and gear transmission products last month, the company said on Tuesday.
Hota, which supplies products to Tesla Inc and BorgWarner Inc, among other global vehicle brands, is a major beneficiary of the electric vehicle (EV) trend in Taiwan.
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
Following a drop in revenue early last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hota’s revenue rebounded in the second half of last year.
Daiwa Capital Markets Co forecast that Hota’s revenue for this quarter would be backed by the upbeat order outlook from its key clients.
“We expect more EV revenue contribution to kick off from 2021 as some projects have been delayed in 2020 due to COVID-19,” Daiwa said in a note last month.
Hota is investing NT$4.2 billion in a new plant featuring 10 automated production lines in the Chiayi Dapumei Precision Machinery Park (嘉義大埔美精密機械園區), for which the company expects to obtain an operational license after the Lunar New Year holiday, it said.
The company aims to start production at the new plant in the second half of this year and supply components for EVs for US and European clients. It already operates two plants in the same industrial park.
As Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc are joining the EV business, Hota has proposed to build more manufacturing facilities in the industrial park to be able to quickly respond to customer needs, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday.
Construction for the proposed NT$10 billion plant could start as early as next year, and mass production might commence in 2023, the report said.
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