Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted a small profit for its major four units of NT$715 million (US$21.69 million) for the fourth quarter and NT$8.37 billion for last year, it said, blaming languid demand and China’s overproduction.
The fourth-quarter results represented a comeback from losses of NT$8.03 billion in the preceding quarter, but suggested an 81 percent plunge, or earnings of NT$0.29 per share, compared with a year earlier, company data showed.
The poor earnings came even though combined revenues last year slipped only 2.1 percent to NT$1.47 trillion amid lingering excessive supply induced by Chinese peers, the group said.
Photo: Chang Huei-wen, Taipei Times
Consequently, the group said it would issue moderate year-end bonuses equivalent to three months of wages for its employees later this month.
The conglomerate said it is looking at business improvement this year for petrochemical products, but voiced concern that US president-elect Donald Trump’s planned tariff hikes would slow the pace of recovery.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), engaged primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins from its naphtha-cracking operations, last quarter emerged from losses by posting a profit of NT$1.27 billion, helped by inventory recovery, indirect investment and foreign exchange benefits, the company said in a stock exchange filing.
Similar reasons enabled the unit to book NT$5.944 billion of net income for the whole of last year, or earnings of NT$0.62 per share, it said.
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), whose main business involves producing processed plastic and chemical products, electronic materials and polyester fiber, last quarter saw its profit surge more than threefold to NT$280 million, as demand for most products picked up, it said.
Further, the company indirectly benefited from materials used in the development of artificial intelligence, it said.
For the whole of last year, Nan Ya reported a net income of NT$3.32 billion, or earnings of NT$0.42 per share, as the negative impact of global inflation and monetary tightening lessened, giving its customers renewed interest in rebuilding their inventories, it said.
However, the figures indicated a 47.4 percent retreat from a year earlier.
Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維), which produces and sells petrochemical products, nylon fibers and rayon staple fibers in Taiwan and abroad, booked losses of NT$1.07 billion for the fourth quarter of last year, dragged by the falling international oil price and a supply glut, it said.
The subsidiary managed a tiny profit of NT$379 million for last year, or earnings of NT$0.06 per share, it said.
The company said it would seek to diversify its markets beyond China and focus on products that generate higher margins.
Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, climbed out of the woods in the foruth quarter with a net income of NT$234 million, but swung to a loss of NT$1.27 billion, or NT$0.2 per share, last year, its filing said.
Core businesses continued to take losses and an investment in Fxuin Special Steel Co (福欣特殊鋼), a Chinese company based in China’s Fujian Province, also proved ill-fated, muting an increase in overall sales, it said.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
RSS