Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday cut its forecast of vehicle sales in Taiwan to 427,000 units this year, attributable to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as supply constraints of automotive semiconductors and shipping containers.
Yulon forecast that sales would decline 3.8 percent from 444,000 vehicles sold last year.
The automaker in November last year estimated a slower decline of 2.9 percent to 431,000 units.
Photo: Amy Yang, Taipei Times
The government might also phase out incentives for replacing older vehicles, which would weigh on the market, Yulon vice president Lee Chien-hui (李建輝) told investors in Taipei.
Vehicle buyers are eligible to a NT$50,000 (US$1,758) commodity tax refund when buying a new vehicle while retiring an old one.
Due to concerns over the possible cancelation of the policy, vehicle sales in the first quarter increased by 17.3 percent year-on-year to 118,000 units, he said.
Despite a conservative outlook for the local market, Lee said that Yulon’s operations stabilized following two years of turnaround efforts.
Yulon posted a net profit of NT$2.74 billion last year, reversing losses of NT$24.47 billion in 2019. Earnings per share were NT$2.8, compared with losses per share of NT$26.13 a year earlier.
Gross margin climbed to 23 percent from 7 percent.
Yulon’s real-estate development project in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) progressed well, the automaker said.
Bookstore chain operator Eslite Spectrum Corp (誠品生活) and movie theater chain Vieshow Cinemas (威秀影城) are two of its tenants, Lee said.
The project would be completed in the fourth quarter of next year as scheduled, he said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
RSS