China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), Taiwan’s largest integrated steelmaker, swung into a loss in the first half of this year as it remained in the red for a third consecutive month last month.
Its pretax loss was NT$1.57 billion (US$53.3 million) from January to last month, an unfavorable result compared with a pretax profit of NT$3.498 billion for the same period last year, the company said in a statement on Friday.
The first-half result reflected a slump in operating income due to decreases in revenue, sales volume and average selling prices of its steel products, as US tariffs and local currency’s appreciation kept downstream clients sidelined, the company said.
Photo: Reuters
Additionally, lower dividends from the company’s mining investments also caused a decline in nonoperating income, it said.
The company said its cumulative revenue totaled NT$168.27 billion in the first half of the year, down from NT$188.33 billion during the same period last year, with shipments of 3.78 billion tonnes, also down from 3.96 million tonnes the previous year.
Although global trade, consumption and investment confidence are still at a low level, CSC said it is cautiously optimistic about the outlook for the second half of this year.
That is because market uncertainty continues to ease since the US has started notifying its trading partners of tariff rates, the company said in the statement.
The end-market demand is also expected to gradually emerge, given a positive outlook for its downstream partners in Taiwan amid strong demand for emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, it said.
Furthermore, China recently announced that it would begin construction of the world’s largest hydropower dam in Tibet, which is expected to boost steel demand for infrastructure, the company said
This might help balance steel production and sales, and lead the market out of the trough earlier, the company added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: The Japanese company is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence linchpins Nvidia Corp and TSMC Softbank Group Corp agreed to buy US$2 billion of Intel Corp stock, a surprise deal to shore up a struggling US name while boosting its own chip ambitions. The Japanese company, which is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence (AI) linchpins Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is to pay US$23 a share — a small discount to Intel’s last close. Shares of the US chipmaker, which would issue new stock to Softbank, surged more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Softbank’s stock fell as much as 5.4 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo, its
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
RSS