Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), Taiwan’s largest property broker by number of offices, saw its revenue spike 44 percent year-on-year to NT$260 billion (US$9.35 billion) in the first six months of this year, driven by significant market-share gains in Taoyuan, and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties.
The strong showing was also due to effective cooperation among the group’s three brands, Yung Ching Realty Co (永慶), U-Trust Realty Co (有巢氏) and Taiching Realty Co (台慶不動產), the group said.
Sales in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli soared 30 percent to NT$83.5 billion in the first half of the year, during which time joint selling accounted for 70 percent and individual outlets generated an average of NT$17 million, it said.
That suggested a market share of 40 percent in the three areas, achieved jointly by 3,600 staffers who managed to serve customers even when a level 3 COVID-19 alert chilled house-hunting activity in May and June, it said.
Evertrust Rehouse has actively embraced digital transformation in recent years and has adopted virtual reality and augmented reality devices for house hunting at its outlets, allowing customers to view properties amid COVID-19 restrictions, it said.
That helped grow the number of outlets from 35 to 230 in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli in the first half of the year, Evertrust Rehouse franchise business manager Chung Chih-cheng (莊志成) said.
Many outlets in the three areas posted revenues of above the NT$10 million, NT$20 million and NT$50 million marks, outperforming outlets in other areas of Taiwan, Evertrust said.
The housing market in Hsinchu has remained strong despite the outbreak, due to a shortage of existing homes and a limited supply of presale projects, a Hsinchu-based Taiching Realty outlet said.
Real demand, on the other hand, is robust on the back of high household incomes, as Hsinchu is home to the headquarters of Taiwan’s major technology firms, it said.
Brokers in Hsinchu also take advantage of demand for industrial land and factory buildings, the outlet said.
Prospective clients in Hsinchu are particularly receptive to house hunting guided by technology, it said, adding that 80 percent of peers use drones to help survey streets, buildings and land.
The group has said that the housing market should stage a comeback once the government has successfully dealt with the COVID-19 outbreak.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Nvidia Corp’s GB300 platform is expected to account for 70 to 80 percent of global artificial intelligence (AI) server rack shipments this year, while adoption of its next-generation Vera Rubin 200 platform is to gradually gain momentum after the third quarter of the year, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said. Servers based on Nvidia’s GB300 chips entered mass production last quarter and they are expected to become the mainstay models for Taiwanese server manufacturers this year, Trendforce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) said in an interview. This year is expected to be a breakout year for AI servers based on a variety of chips, as
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS