Business and Finance

Shoemaker Pou Chen posts Q2 loss of NT$525m

LOWER THAN EXPECTED: Weak order visibility for OEM shoes along with slowing retail sales in China amid sinking demand affected the firm’s second-quarter results

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 17, 2020
By: Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporter

Shoemaker Pou Chen Corp (寶成工業) on Friday reported a net loss in the second quarter due largely to declining sales and operating losses.

The world’s largest contract maker of branded athletic and casual footwear also has investments in footwear retailing and land development, as well as in financial services providers such as Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽).

In the April-to-June quarter, net losses were NT$525.97 million (US$17.8 million), compared with net profit of NT$4.03 billion in the same period last year and net profit of NT$1.19 billion three months earlier, the company’s financial statement showed.

It posted losses per share of NT$0.18 in the second quarter, compared with earnings per share of NT$1.37 a year earlier and NT$0.4 the previous quarter.    [FULL  STORY]

HTC Wildfire E Lite shows up in the Google Play Console, has specs uncovered

GSM Arena
Date: 15 August 2020
By: Vlad 

Earlier this month HTC made the Wildfire E2 smartphone official in Russia, with entry-level specs and a price to match. However, it turns out that the Taiwanese company is also working on an even cheaper, even more basic handset to be launched soon under the Wildfire sub-brand.

This will be called Wildfire E Lite, and it has just showed up in the Google Play Console. The listing tells us that the phone has a screen with 720×1440 resolution, with a now quite uncommon 18:9 aspect ratio.

As you can see from the tiny picture showing the handset's front, there are no notches or hole punches here, instead you get substantial top and bottom bezels. The Wildfire E Lite has 2GB of RAM and it runs Android 10.

It's powered by MediaTek's Helio A20 chipset, which with its quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU is as 'entry-level' as you can get at this point in time. So you really shouldn't expect any sort of groundbreaking performance here, but the price could be very low. We'll let you know when we find out more about the HTC Wildfire E Lite.    [FULL  STORY]

OneZo, a boba tea franchise from Taiwan, was drawn to open in Worcester to be neighbors with the WooSox

Mass Live
Date: Aug 15, 2020
By: Michael Bonner

OneZo introduces tea with homemade boba to Canal District

Out the front door of OneZo, the Worcester Public Market hides the reason why its owners chose to open a boba tea cafe in the Canal District.

A crane shooting up skyward, though, acts as the identifier. The excitement of the construction of Polar Park brought James Ta to Worcester, specifically to invest in the Canal District.

Ta signed a lease in September of 2019, two months before receiving franchise rights to produce OneZo boba tea.

It was a risk, but one Ta was willing to take to be within the vicinity of the new home of the Worcester Red Sox within the Canal District.

“The WooSox, that’s why we decided [on Worcester], because the baseball team that’s coming to Kelley Square in this area,” Ta said. “We love this area and hopefully it’s a great location to expand our business.”    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei MRT adds mask vending machines at 6 stations

Demand for surgical masks has increased due to the number of imported COVID-19 cases

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/15
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

A face mask vending machine at Taipei City Hall Station.  (CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei Metro passengers can purchase surgical masks at six major stations starting Saturday (Aug. 15) as the government tightens coronavirus face mask rules.

The company started to impose fines on unmasked passengers from Thursday (Aug. 13). Those failing to comply will be fined between NT$3,000 (US$102) and NT$15,000 (US$510).

As of today (Aug. 15), two passengers had refused to wear a mask since a mandatory face mask rule began on April 4. They are said to have been given stiff fines by Taipei City's health department.

The Aug. 13 regulation codifies the earlier face mask rule by setting a penalty for not wearing a mask.    [FULL  STORY]

HTC incurs more losses in Q2 but gross margin up

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/15/2020
By: Jeffrey Wu and Frances Huang

CNA file photo.

Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) Taiwan-based smartphone brand HTC Corp. saw its net losses extended in the second quarter from a quarter earlier, although its gross margin rose for the 10th consecutive quarter.

In a statement released Friday, HTC said its net loss for the April-June period stood at NT$1.84 billion (US$62.37 million), or NT$2.23 per share, compared with NT$1.69 billion in net loss, or NT$2.05 per share, in the first quarter.

In the three-month period, HTC posted NT$1.34 billion in consolidated sales, little changed from a quarter earlier.

The company said the further losses reflected a lack of economies of scale for its products, while market analysts said the Taiwanese vendor remained haunted by escalating competition in the global smartphone market.    [FULL  STORY]

TAIWAN STEEL SCRAP: Buyers focus on US scrap while holidays limit supplies from Japan

Taiwanese buyers turned to imported containerized ferrous scrap from the United States West Coast over the past week due to the absence of Japanese scrap in the market.

fastmarkets.com
Date: August 14, 2020
By: Paul Lim

Fastmarkets’ daily price assessment for containerized cargoes of steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20), US material import, cfr main port Taiwan was $257-259 per tonne on Friday August 14, unchanged from a day earlier but up by $2 per tonne from $255-257 per tonne cfr Taiwan on August 7.

Sources in Taiwan told Fastmarkets that prices for containerized cargoes of heavy melting scrap 1&2 (80:20) from the US West Coast have stopped shooting up and will be stabilizing from this week onwards.

“Buyers are increasingly hesitant about purchasing at higher prices now. Even prices in Turkey have stabilized,” a buyer at a Taiwanese steel mill said on Thursday.

Negotiation levels were at $255-260 per tonne cfr Taiwan early in the week before transactions were concluded at $257, $258 and $259 per tonne cfr Taiwan from Wednesday onwards.
[FULL  STORY]

McDonald’s Taiwan to discontinue 7 menu items starting Aug. 26

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/14/2020
By: Yang Shu-min and Ko Lin

CNA file photo

Taipei, Aug. 14 (CNA) American fast food chain McDonald's said Friday that it will stop serving seven existing items on its menu at restaurants in Taiwan, starting Aug. 26, due to lackluster sales.

The items to be discontinued are the Angus Beef burger, the Thousand Island Shrimp burger, the 1+1=$50 Coin Menu's Spicy Chicken Burger Meal, Shake Shake Chicken Bite, McCafé's Passion Fruit-Lemon Smoothie and Hot Milk Tea, and the Happy Meal Chicken Bites.

Meanwhile, the major food franchise also announced that from Aug. 26, its Taiwan-based restaurants will introduce several new items, including a smoked chicken sandwich and a honey lemon smoothie.    [SOURCE]

Virus Outbreak: DGBAS lowers GDP growth to 1.56%

SPENDING SLUMP: The agency adjusted downward its economic growth forecast for this year as private consumption slid 4.98% last quarter and looks weak ahead

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 15, 2020
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) yesterday trimmed its forecast for GDP growth for a third time this year, to 1.56 percent, from the 1.67 percent it predicted in May, after private consumption fared worse than expected.

Private consumption contracted by the deepest in history, by 4.98 percent, during the April-to-June period and might not recover fast enough to tip the GDP component back into growth this year, DGBAS Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) told a media briefing.

It is expected to drop another 0.04 percent this quarter before picking up 0.71 percent next quarter, the agency’s report showed.

For the whole of this year, private consumption is forecast to shrink 1.44 percent, it said.
[FULL  STO-RY]

Taiwan’s first artificial intelligence park breaks ground

Construction of NT$13.6 billion project in New Taipei set to finish by 2023Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/13
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Construction of Tucheng A.I. Science Park scheduled to be completed by 2023. (BES Engineering Corp. photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The construction of Taiwan's first artificial intelligence (A.I.) park was officially launched in New Taipei City's Tucheng District Thursday (Aug. 13) and is expected to be finished by 2023.

As part of the country's urban renewal project, the A.I. business park has an area of 53,000 square meters and will feature four 17-story buildings for A.I.-oriented startups and companies to use. There is also a plan for the only sky track in Taiwan's industrial districts to provide workers and community members a healthy environment.

According to BES Engineering Corp. (中華工程), the designer of the park, the NT$13.6 billion (US$462 million) project aims to tap into Taiwan's software talent and produce a demo space for local as well as international A.I. manufacturers and service providers. It said the construction is scheduled to be completed by 2023 and will become a landmark for New Taipei.

The company said a third of the spaces in the park will be saved for its own use, while the other two-thirds will be rented out to enterprises that are interested. It estimated that the park will create nearly 13,000 job opportunities after it opens and that A.I. will gradually enter the mainstream, reported Liberty Times.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan exports to six South Asian countries post record fall

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/13/2020
By: Flor Wang and Liu Pei-cheng

CNA file photo

Taipei, Aug. 13 (CNA) Taiwan's exports to six countries in South Asia in the first seven months of 2020 saw their biggest ever year-on-year fall, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) reported on Thursday.

Due to lockdown restrictions and border control measures imposed by governments across the globe amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan's outbound shipments to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan plunged 35.7 percent from the same period last year to US$2.122 billion.

The figures fell to roughly the same as the US$2.143 billion posted in 2004, when data was first recorded, MOF data showed.

From 2004-2010, Taiwan's exports to the six South Asian countries, mainly rubber, chemicals, basic metals and conventional products, rose from around US$2.1 billion per year to US$5 billion per year, peaking at US$6.37 billion in 2011 as a result of economic expansion in some of those countries, the same tallies indicated.    [FULL  STORY]