Wistron Corp (緯創), a leading Taiwanese computer and peripheral original design manufacturer (ODM), is injecting more than US$1.1 billion into its US and Mexican subsidiaries in response to US tariff policies, after the company’s board of directors on Tuesday approved 10 investment proposals.
Four of the 10 proposals are to expand the company’s production capacity in the US, including an injection of US$455 million into its wholly owned subsidiary Wistron InfoComm (USA) Corp (WIUS) in Dallas, Texas.
The funds would allow WIUS to acquire more land and facilities at its Westport site, invest in facility upgrades to meet future artificial intelligence (AI) manufacturing demand, undertake facility improvements at its Eagle plant, and procure machinery and equipment, Wistron said in a regulatory filing.
Photo: Reuters
The board also approved subsidiary SMS Infocomm Corp’s Dallas facility lease, from this year to 2030, for after-sales services and business needs, the filing said.
“The expansion of our US subsidiaries aims to boost production capacity for AI-related products, such as AI servers, while the exact timeline remains undecided,” a Wistron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
Wistron plans to invest up to US$16.7 million to upgrade its factory in Juarez, Mexico, to support future AI server demand, and might lease a new facility for warehousing needs through 2030 for up to US$23 million, the filing showed.
The company also plans to increase the capital budget for new equipment and facilities at its Hsinchu plant from NT$3.896 billion (US$128.57 million) to NT$3.914 billion, inject an additional NT$1.7 billion into its asset management unit to support the construction of its new headquarters in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) and establish a venture capital unit with up to NT$3.5 billion, it said.
Wistron yesterday said revenue last month increased 84.1 percent year-on-year to NT$133.7 billion, the highest for April in company history, with cumulative revenue in the first four months rising 54.5 percent to NT$480.19 billion from a year earlier, also a record for the same period.
Net profit in the first quarter grew 51.28 percent year-on-year to NT$5.33 billion, with earnings per share of NT$1.85, the company said. Gross margin rose 0.61 percentage points to 7.81 percent, and operating margin improved 1.42 percentage points to 4.37 percent, company data showed.
Separately, Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) yesterday said its revenue last month rose 58.22 percent to NT$154 billion from a year earlier, its best April sales.
Cumulative revenue in the first four months increased 79.55 percent to NT$639.68 billion, the company said in a statement.
Quanta has been transitioning from a notebook computer ODM to a manufacturer of servers and automotive devices in the past few years to buoy its profitability.
Consumer electronics still account for a large portion of Quanta’s revenue, a company official said by telephone yesterday.
Quanta is scheduled to hold its earnings conference on Wednesday next week to release its first-quarter results and shed light on its business outlook.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS