Elevator and escalator supplier Golden Friends Corp (GFC, 崇友實業) is positive about business this quarter, supported by new demand, as well as maintenance and replacement needs amid a property boom and a vibrant economy.
The Taipei-based company gave the upbeat assessment after posting a 21.27 percent increase in revenue for last quarter to a record NT$1.26 billion (US$45.54 million).
Golden Friends attributed the revenue growth to profit recognition from selling elevators to public housing projects in Taipei’s Neihu (內湖) and Nangang (南港) districts, as well as effective replacement promotion campaigns.
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
Replacement business soared 36.63 percent year-on-year in the October-to-December period, while its maintenance arm served 38,845 elevators, it said in a statement.
The firm sells elevators and escalators under its own GFC and Genesis brands, and has been a contract maker for Japan’s Toshiba elevators and escalators.
The boom in the local property market has led developers to accelerate housing project construction and the process has benefited Golden Friends, it said, adding that strong elevator sales would shore up business at its maintenance division.
For the whole of last year, the company’s revenue grew 4.82 percent year-on-year to NT$4.61 billion, it said.
Looking forward, Golden Friends said that it would seek to expand its market share and customer base by developing high-speed elevators equipped with Internet of Things and facial recognition technologies.
Order visibility looks bright this quarter, as it has signed deals to supply elevators for luxury home projects and international tourist hotels in Taichung, it said.
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.