Elevator supplier Golden Friends Corp (崇友實業) yesterday posted NT$330.48 million (US$11.62 million) in revenue for last month, a 38.7 percent rise from a month earlier, amid continued recovery in the local property market, although the figure fell 15.15 percent from a year earlier.
Revenue in the first quarter totaled NT$1.03 billion, a 3.66 percent increase from a year earlier, Golden Friends data showed.
Replacement of old elevators rose 16.35 percent, accounting for 24.69 percent of overall installments, or 500 elevators, in the January-to-March period, the Taipei-based company said in a statement.
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
Its maintenance and repair business serviced 37,100 elevators and escalators in the quarter, an increase of 4 percent from a year earlier as government agencies and companies become more aware that elevators play an important part in building safety, it said.
Golden Friends is upbeat about its business going forward, even though developers might turn cautious following a spate of unfavorable policies to cool the property market, as real demand for housing and office space remains, the company said.
Firms shifting manufacturing facilities home from China would also lend support to its business, it said.
Contracts on hand so far this year have spiked 18.05 percent from the same time a year earlier, laying a healthy foundation for business in the short to medium term, Golden Friends said.
It intends to boost its market share by spending more to improve the ease and convenience of elevator rides, helped by the latest technologies, it said.
Last month, Golden Friends proposed a cash dividend of NT$3 per share based on its net income of NT$726 million last year, or earnings per share of NT$4.1.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the