Business and Finance

FPG paints pessimistic outlook

TECH HOPES: Formosa Petrochemical is putting research behind AI to help navigate crude procurement and IoT to automate the most hazardous production processes

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 09, 2019
By: Ted Chen  /  Staff reporter

The four major units of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) yesterday issued a dim outlook for this quarter after mounting trade tensions and tumbling oil prices took a toll on earnings in the final quarter of last year.

The four companies reported that net income last quarter dropped 94 percent sequentially to NT$4.8 billion (US$155.66 million), while net income the whole of last year fell 10.7 percent annually to NT$217.55 billion.

Revenue last quarter also dropped 5.6 percent sequentially to NT$417.64 billion, with the top line last year rising 16.3 percent annually to NT$1.5 trillion.

Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the group’s oil refinery arm, took the brunt of the impact, with its income during the October-to-December period falling 120.2 percent sequentially to NT$4.18 billion in the red — its first quarterly loss since the fourth quarter of 2014.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan UMC’s scale-down spells trouble for China’s semiconductor vision

Taiwan has been a crucial source of technology as China seeks to fulfill its semiconductor dream

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/07
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

(Image from UMC’s webste)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – China’s ambition to develop a self-reliant semiconductor sector as part of its “Made in China 2025” initiative could suffer a setback as Taiwanese chipmaker United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC, 聯華電子) is downsizing its Chinese chip project over tensions with the U.S., reported Nikkei Asian Review.

The decision by UMC to move 140 engineers out of the 300 personnel of its DRAM team tasked to assist Chinese government-backed Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit (JHICC, 福建晉華) to other positions could be interpreted as a first step towards ceasing its memory chip development business, the report argued.

UMC and JHICC were indicted by a U.S. grand jury over espionage charges last November, in which the two companies allegedly stole trade secrets from U.S. semiconductor company Micron Technology.

Triggered by fears that the lawsuit could harm the company’s contract manufacturing business, UMC scaled down cooperation with JHICC, which had expected to start chip fabrication in 2019. The prospect now appears unlikely, said the report.
[FULL  STORY]

Average year-end bonus to hit 1.27 months of wages: poll

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/07
By: Chiu Po-sheng and Frances Huang

Taipei, Dec. 7 (CNA) Taiwanese employees will receive an average 1.27 months of

CNA file photo

salary as their year-end bonus this year, down from 1.34 months of salary last year, a survey released by 1111 online job bank showed Monday.

Daniel Lee (李大華), head of 1111 job bank’s career development and public relations division, said the decline reflected caution among employers about their outlooks at a time of slower economic growth and trade tensions between the United States and China.

The job bank said that while only 21.72 percent of employers in the survey said their profitability improved in 2018 from a year earlier and 26.9 percent of them said they fared worse, about 83 percent said they were still willing to issue year-end bonuses.

The information industry will issue year-end bonuses of 1.99 months of salary on average, the highest among the 10 industries covered in the poll.    [FULL  STORY]

Exports fall 3% amid weaker chip sales

NO RELIEF IN SIGHT: A 9.9 percent fall in shipments of electronic components showed the weakening demand for smartphones, the Department of Statistics director-general said

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 08, 2019
By: Crystal Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Exports last month declined 3 percent to US$28.61 billion (US$928.53 million) from a year earlier as demand for chips used in smartphones softened, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday, adding that relief was not expected in the short term amid US-China trade tensions.

Global technology titans have cut inventory and halted investment, an ominous sign for Taiwan’s export-reliant economy, the ministry said.

“Replacement demand for the newest-generation smartphones was weaker than expected as shown by a 9.9 percent drop in the shipment of electronic components,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said, adding that a lack of major feature innovations also contributed to lackluster smartphone sales.

Information and technology shipments accounted for about half of overall exports, but Taiwan’s deep participation in the global supply chain makes the nation vulnerable to the lingering US-China trade spat, with the double-digit percentage gain in exports seen in the first half of last year shrinking to a 0.1 percent increase in the fourth quarter, Tsai said.    [FULL  STORY]

Roughly 4,000 full-time employees on furlough in solar industry

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/06
By: Chung Jung-feng and William Yen

CNA file photo

Taipei, Jan. 6 (CNA) Approximately 4,000 full time workers in Taiwan’s solar power industry are currently on unpaid leave, while over 10,000 part-timers also have had their work hours cut, according to an industry representative Sunday.

Kuo Hsuan-fu (郭軒甫), head of the PV Generation System Association of R.O.C. (PVGSA), said the cutbacks were due to a production slowdown in the industry.

Some of the 4,000 full-time employees on furlough and the 10,000 part-time employees on reduced hours are working no more than 10 days per month on average, Kuo said.

He said production at solar power companies in Taiwan had dropped from approximately 100 Mega Watts of solar cells per month to 8 MW in December 2018.
[FULL  STORY]

Largan sales drop on weak demand

WEATHERING THE STORM: A company spokeswoman said that revenue this month is expected to remain ‘flattish from last month,’ amid a reduction in orders from Apple

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 07, 2019
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Smartphone camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光), a major supplier to Apple Inc, on Saturday reported a 19.49 percent drop in sales last month from a month earlier, which it said was due to weaker global demand.

Consolidated sales last month fell to NT$3.23 billion (US$104.66 million), the lowest since March last year, when they stood at NT$3.14 billion, Largan said in a statement.

The figure was a 33.86 percent decline from December 2017, the company said.

Largan’s 20 megapixel lenses and high-end models, which command higher prices, accounted for 10 to 20 percent of its total sales last month, while its 10 megapixel lenses made up 60 to 70 percent and 8 megapixel lenses 10 to 20 percent, Largan said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan records more than 2% drop in car sales for 2018

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/05
By: Tien Yu-pin and Frances Huang 

Taipei, Jan. 5 (CNA) Car sales in Taiwan dropped more than 2 percent in 2018 from a year earlier, amid uncertainty over economic growth in the second half of the year and trade frictions between the United States and China, according to government statistics.

The data showed car sales in Taiwan totaled 435,135 units in 2018, down 2.1 percent from a year earlier, although sales of imported cars increased by an annual 6.3 percent to 197,281 units, accounting for 45.3 percent of the total.

Market analysts said the local car market was propped up to some extent by government subsidies for the purchase of clean energy vehicles.

For the month of December 2018, car sales in Taiwan rose 16.6 percent from a month earlier to 41,993 units amid strong promotion by sellers, but the figure was 0.5 percent lower than a year earlier, according to the statistics.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit record high

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 06, 2019
By: Staff writer, with CNA and Reuters

The nation’s foreign exchange reserves hit another all-time high at the end of last month due to an increase in returns on the portfolio managed by the central bank, the bank said on Friday.

Several non-US dollar currencies in the portfolio appreciated against the greenback. When assets denominated in those currencies were converted into US dollars, the foreign exchange reserves also grew.

Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves last month rose US$409 million from a month earlier to US$461.78 billion, a new high for the second consecutive month, central bank data showed.

The nation’s foreign exchange reserves rose 2.27 percent from the end of 2017 to the end of last year, the data showed.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan chipmaker UMC to scale down China project

Company wants to avoid repercussions from the U.S.: Nikkei Asian Review

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/04
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taiwanese chipmaker UMC. (By Wikimedia Commons)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC, 聯華電子) will downsize its Chinese chip project to avoid charges from the United States, the Nikkei Asian Review reported Friday.

The company will move almost half its DRAM team within the company in a first step toward ending its memory chip development department, while the Fujian Jinhua (福建晉華) project in China is to be dismantled, the Japanese publication said.

Late last year, the company already reported a downsizing of a department in Tainan whose task it was to assist Fujian Jinhua, reports said. Out of the department’s 300 staff, 140 were moved to new functions within UMC, but others were let go.
[FULL  STORY]

Construction works for 600-tonne CGA ship starts in Kaohsiung

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/04
By: Chen Chi-feng and William Yen

Taipei, Jan. 4 (CNA) The construction of a 600-tonne Coast Guard Administration (CGA) patrol ship by a Taiwan-based shipbuilding company got underway Friday in Kaohsiung.

The ship, being built by Jong Shyn Shipbuilding Corporation (JSSC), is the first of a dozen 600-tonne patrol ships to be produced by the company for the CGA.

CGA Fleet Branch head Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) and JSSC Chairman Han Pi-hsiang (韓碧祥) presided over the initiation ceremony Friday to mark the start of the ship’s construction.

In a speech at the event, Hsieh said the construction of the patrol ship symbolized a new milestone in the country’s shipbuilding capabilities and will help the CGA meet its maritime patrol duties.    [FULL  STORY]