MANUFACTURING
Tong Yang profit surges
Tong Yang Industry Co (東陽實業), which manufactures bumpers and automotive sheet metal, yesterday reported that pretax profit surged 1,500 percent last month from a year earlier to NT$363 million (US$11.38 million), the second-highest monthly figure in the company’s history. In the first nine months of this year, pretax profit expanded 279 percent from the same period last year to NT$2.19 billion, or pretax earnings per share of NT$3.8, the highest for the period. This came as the company’s revenue grew 26.5 percent year-on-year to NT$1.9 billion last month, with cumulative revenue in the first nine months totaling NT$15.97 billion, an 18.8 percent increase from the same period last year. The company said it is accelerating production to cope with a rebound in demand and is gearing up to develop new products to grasp new business opportunities.
COMPONENTS
TXC reports record profit
Quartz crystal components maker TXC Corp (台灣晶技) on Wednesday reported its highest September pretax profit in the company’s history thanks to foreign exchange gains and Apple Inc’s launch of new iPhones. Pretax profit rose 46.5 percent month-on-month and 13 percent year-on-year to NT$441 million last month, TXC said in a regulatory filing. TXC supplies frequency-control crystal components, which are used in networking, mobile communications, mobile computing, automotive applications, lighting and home automation. In the third quarter, pretax profit was NT$1.06 billion, up 3.4 percent quarterly, but down 2.1 percent from a year earlier, the company said. Despite weakening demand, TXC reported cumulative pretax profit of NT$2.895 billion in the first nine months, nearly flat from the same period last year, or pertax earnings per share of NT$9.35, it said.
EMPLOYMENT
Furloughed worker data fall
The number of workers on official furlough programs in Taiwan fell by more than 4,000 as travel agencies brought back staff from unpaid leave ahead of an easing of COVID-19 border controls yesterday. Data released by the Ministry of Labor on Tuesday showed that the number of workers on furlough programs had fallen by 4,714 to 13,336 as of Friday last week from 18,050 on Sept. 30. The number of furloughed workers in the support service sector had dropped by 3,154, or about 35 percent, to 5,817 as of Friday last week, the data showed. Amid rising domestic consumption, the number of furloughed workers in the lodging, and food and beverage industry fell to 953 from 1,567, the data showed. The number of furloughed workers in the transportation and warehousing industry fell to 918 from 1,249, while the manufacturing sector saw the number of workers on unpaid leave fall to 3,355 from 3,434, the data showed.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has secured three construction permits for its plan to build a state-of-the-art A14 wafer fab in Taichung, and is likely to start construction soon, the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau said yesterday. Speaking with CNA, Wang Chun-chieh (王俊傑), deputy director general of the science park bureau, said the world’s largest contract chipmaker has received three construction permits — one to build a fab to roll out sophisticated chips, another to build a central utility plant to provide water and electricity for the facility and the other to build three office buildings. With the three permits, TSMC
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
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