Two United States Navy F-18s made an emergency landing in Tainan, a city in south Taiwan, Wednesday afternoon after declaring an in-flight emergency due to a mechanical issue.

The two aircraft transmitted a 7700 “squawk” code which is recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization as meaning general emergency. The two aircraft landed safely at Tainan Air Force Base shortly after 1:00 pm.

An American diplomatic official is quoted by local media as saying the two aircraft were on a “routine” flight when they encountered a mechanical emergency and required to land. The official thanked Taiwan for its assistance in getting the planes safely to the ground.

As Taiwan’s Air Force does not have F-18s in its fleet, the aircraft and pilots will remain in Taiwan until technicians and spare parts can be sent in from the closest US base in Okinawa, Japan.

A sensitive landing

Landing two US military aircraft in Taiwan has the potential to create further complications due to the island’s unique relationship with China and most of the world.

Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, does not have formal diplomatic relations with most countries. Following the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party retreated from China to Taiwan in 1949. That same year, Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China. Until the late 1970s most of the world considered the Republic of China (Taiwan) to be “China”. In 1979 that recognition shifted to China, with China taking the ROC’s former seat at the UN and the US and most countries of the world opening up full diplomatic relations.

Relations between most countries and Taiwan are conducted through non-official “Trade Institutes” that act as de-facto embassies without the official title.

To this day Taiwan and China see each other as the legitimate “China”, with the other being considered a rogue province. Relations between the two improved in 1992, when both ROC and PRC officials met to sign the 1992 Consensus which states that both sides agree there is “One China” but that definition is subject to interpretation. In 2005 the two sides agreed to have daily cross-strait flights.

While the United States does not have official relations with Taiwan, it provides defensive weapons to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act. The act does state that the US will come to the defense of Taiwan should the PRC attack it, provided that Taiwan does not declare independence first. While the US does not provide top-tier weapons to Taiwan for fear of angering China, it has provided the nation (under protest from China) with F-16s, Black Hawk helicopters, and Apache attack helicopters amongst other kit.

A ‘routine’ flight?

While diplomatic officials in Taiwan maintain that the flight was “routine”, it was likely anything but.

The area the jets flew through is heavily contested, and to get there they no doubt had to traverse through Chinese Air Defense Identification Zones.

In the last few years China has taken an aggressive posturing in the South China Sea, to the protest of neighbouring states. Many states in the area, such as the Philippines, have expressed concern about China’s expansion in the area. China has recently been carrying out military drills in the South China Sea’s Bashi Channel, near Philippines’ territorial waters, which is notable because of the distance from China’s coastlines.

It is likely that the US jets were in the region to shadow or monitor the drill to symbolize to China that the US has interests in the area as well. The emergency landing in Taiwan was no doubt noticed by China — but perhaps that was the point.

The post US F-18s Make Emergency Landing in Taiwan appeared first on VR World.

On March 23 Pegatron (TPE: 4938) reported its yearly earnings which were double-digit gains over last year.

Pegatron, which shared responsibility for assembling the iPhone 6 with Hon Hai Precision Industry (TPE:2317), reported a 53.4% jump in profit year-over-year to $466.8 million. An earnings guidance recently released by Hon Hai shows that the company also expects a double-digit profit increase (it will report its earnings when the market closes on March 30).

But both Pegatron and Hon Hai (the parent company of Foxconn) — which compete in some sense — have an underlying problem: the double-digit growth that they have become accustomed to is based on the success of Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) products. Both companies have other lucrative contracts with other vendors, but no other vendor orders the sheer volume that Apple does.

Pegatron’s CEO acknowledges this. When Pegatron reported its earnings earlier this week it acknowledged that nearly 60% of its revenue came from Apple.

“It’s definitely not a good thing to be too concentrated on just a few clients. But you can’t avoid the fact that mobile phones have been fast sellers,” Chief Executive Jason Cheng is quoted as saying. “When good business comes your way, how can you not take it?”

Lessons from Hon Hai

Hon Hai was in a similar situation until last year, and has taken some steps to reduce its dependence on Apple. In 2012, 40% of Hon Hai’s revenue came from Apple as it had the sole responsibility to manufacture the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 5s.

Since then Hon Hai has acquired controlling shares in Taiwan’s Asia Pacific Telecom (TPE: 3682) and has made plays to expand into automotive. In late December it had publicly announced it had taken a 10.5% in China Harmony (HKG:3836), a major luxury car dealer in China. Recently it announced that it was partnering with Tencent (HKG:0700) to build electric vehicles that were connected to the Internet of Things. It says it can build electric vehicles for under $15,000 — a significant discount when compared to current models from major manufacturers.

Hon Hai hasn’t publicly stated how much of its overall revenue Apple accounted for, but it’s believed to be in the 25-30% range.

What can Pegatron do?

Hon Hai’s plans to diversify into electric vehicles is very ambitious, and comes at exactly the right time. Choked by smog, China is incentivizing the research and development and production of electric vehicles. Hon Hai already has considerable manufacturing infrastructure in China’s Guangdong province and in Taiwan, and the governments of both countries would be happy to provide subsidies to incentivize scaling up production and creating a supply chain.

But Pegatron lacks the scale of Hon Hai and cannot as easily scale and shift its manufacturing capacity. Instead, Pegatron should adopt just one of Hon Hai’s strategies and invest in allied firms in the same industry. Pegatron could make investments into mobile telecoms, and even finance companies: these are two things that would assist it in becoming a major IoT player. There are also dozens of wearables firms in Taiwan that Pegatron could take a stake in.

Apple will always make up a considerable amount of Hon Hai’s and Pegatron’s revenue. But both companies can become less dependent on Apple through a few smart investments.

The post How Can Taiwan Manufacturers Reduce Their Dependence on Apple? appeared first on VR World.

Taiwan’s Acer (TPE: 2353) reported its 2014 fiscal year earnings Wednesday, after the markets closed in Taipei and the company reported its first slim profit in three years.

The company reported revenue of $10.39 billion, down 23% year-over-year, but its gross profit grew 28.3% year-over-year to $925 million.

“The results show that Acer has stayed profitable throughout the entire year, with increasing profits each consecutive quarter, and has steadily turned its operations around,” Acer said in a press release. “We’ve kept adjusting the product mix contingent upon the demands of various markets.”

Jason Chen is already writing his legacy

Move the clocks back a year ago and things weren’t looking good for the company that’s considered one of the pillars of Taiwan’s PC-making industry. Acer’s then-new CEO, Jason Chen, who was installed in the company’s top position was looking at an ailing company. The PC market showed no signs of recovering, and while Acer had made considerable efforts to branch out to other markets such as tablets, smartphones and cloud, this diversification was not enough to stem the losses.

But over the last year, a series of wins for Acer turned things around. Its Chromebooks had a warm reception from consumers and its cloud business started to grow. Then the PC business once again began to pick up, growing even more once Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced Windows 10.

In a January profile piece from Bloomberg, Chen said that this year would be a year of growth, not recovery, for Acer.

“The turnaround is pretty much done,” he said. This year, “we should no longer talk about turnaround.”

The post Acer on Road To Recovery appeared first on VR World.

When it comes to marketing proneness, Taiwanese (and other Far Eastern) vendors often were afraid of their own shadow, not to interfere with lucrative OEM deals that western vendors utilized to the full extent: you may build your own stuff, but we contract you to build our stuff and you shall not interfere with that.

For good portion of it, the said mantra is true to this date, with Far Eastern industry giants still afraid to speak out, even though they now do almost everything for Western vendors such as Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) – without Foxconn (TPE: 2354) (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro), Pegatron (TPE: 4938) (iPhone), Asustek’s (TPE: 2357)  China facility, Flextronics (NASDAQ: FLEX) and Quanta (TPE: 2382) (MacBook an MacBook Air) – you would not be able to buy your favorite product from Cupertino (Designed in California, Made in China / Taiwan).

Not anymore – Asustek recently found balls of steel (that corporate move to Singapore seems to have helped) and decided to ditch the fear of the West and go for the jugular.

In two infographics, Asus attacked Apple’s products, pushing its design and manufacturing capabilities.

First ad attacks the MacBook and pitches its Zenbook:

ASUS North America tries to prove ZenBook is a thinner (and better) product than Apple MacBook. And 50% cheaper.

Second picture goes for the Golden jugular, pardon, Apple:

Golden Apple (Watch) is not the solution. We (our ZenWatch) is.

Who knows, perhaps Asian tigers will start challenging its former and current customers on more fields than just the price. After all, the key to selling a product is something that Far East still has trouble understanding – it’s not about the physical product, it’s about the experience.

Still, a ballsy move Asus. Ballsy indeed.

The post Asus’ Balls of Steel vs. Apple’s Golden MacBook and Watch appeared first on VR World.

In the last few years the Asia-Pacific area has revealed itself to be fertile ground for two-wheeled electric vehicles, with almost 45 million units sold by 2012 and and an expected 50% increase by 2018.

Unlike in the two other world’s biggest markets of Western Europe and North America, where electric vehicles are most seen as an expensive way of life, in Asia electric powered vehicles are seen as a practical and cheap alternative for daily commuting. China alone became has been the world frontrunner since 1995 becoming the largest electric two-wheeler manufacturer and exporter, accounting for 92 % of the global market with four times more e-bikes than cars.

“Chinese people love bicycles and now they’ve become electric‏,” Shenta Tsai, Chief Technology Officer for Mobipus Technology, an electric powertrain company, said to VR World. “A few customers of mine in China, they produce from 1 to 4 million electric scooter per year   99% of electric scooter’s motor are made in China, about 95% of their controllers and ‏ 98% of the frames and plastic are also from there.”

However in neighboring Taiwan, a country with the highest scooter density in the world, adherence to the transition to electric transportation has been far from hasty. Though it has almost 15 million scooters for 23 million inhabitants, only 122,500 scooters are electric.

If there is a good place to check the feasibility of electric scooters that place is Taiwan as two-wheel vehicles are completely omnipresent and an essential part of daily life mostly petrol powered ones.

As with other Eastern Asian metropolis, the city of Taipei is in a basin which traps all the air pollution produced by high levels of petrol motorcycles emissions.  However, this high dependence on scooters can be an advantage and a disadvantage to the inclusion of environment-friendly solutions.

“The traditional gasoline scooter in Taiwan is one of cheapest forms of transportation in the world.” says Azizi Tucker, former region supplier development in Asia for Tesla Motors and currently VP of Engineering at LMD Racing and Owner of Sketch to SKU, an engineering consulting company. “Scooters are typically kept for 10 to 15 years and receive only the most minimal service. They use very little gas. As such electric scooters in many ways are very hard to market in Taiwan since the gas scooters are so cheap to the user”.

As an example, Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) implemented a program to support e-scooters in 1998, providing a subsidy of $1000 for each vehicle purchased. Although this reduced the price to be roughly on par with low-powered gasoline models, it failed to stimulate interest when battery-charging infrastructure and general e-scooter performance capabilities were still in their infancy.

For the duration of that particular program, which concluded in 2002, only about 26,000 e-scooters were purchased. New subsidies are in place, but rather than increasing the amount, they have decreased.

Although it managed to reduce the price of an electric motorcycle to that of a gasoline-powered model it didn’t really stimulate demand as not many people became interested in a product where battery-charging infrastructure and autonomy was still not good enough. For the duration of the EPA program, which concluded in 2002,  and only about 26,000 electric motorcycles were purchased.

Creating a fertile market

While some might believe that the industry would struggle after the cessation of the program, this is not the case with Gogoro, a small Taiwanese startup founded in 2011 by ex-HTC engineers (TPE: 2498) managed to raise $150 million in venture capital (a good portion came from HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang) and launched the Smartscooter, an innovative electric scooter.

“Gogoro’s vision was inspired by one of the greatest challenges of our time: How to distribute energy in a smarter way to have the greatest impact on our lives and the lives of future generations,” said a company spokesperson.

Tucker believes Taiwan can finally be at the forefront of the electric motion vanguard.

“Gogoro is a huge advancement for electric scooters. The quality of the design and the performance are a huge step forward compared to the electric scooters on the market now,” he says. “The battery swap is a smart solution to the charging problem. It is especially useful in cities where people do not own garages.”

In Tucker’s view the benefit of going with electric is not short-term, as it helps moving young riders toward electric vehicles as a transportation solution and it can significantly decrease tailpipe emissions.

He states that the gas scooter industry in Taiwan is very highly developed with amazing value for the money with good gas mileage and speed. Nowadays while $0.03 of gasoline keeps a small scooter going for between 1 and 1.5 km, the same amount in electricity allows an e-scooter to run for almost triple the distance.

“Also due to the long life of scooters there are many scooters on the street with older more polluting emissions,” he says. “The industry has been forced to raise prices to support better emissions but that has led to decreased sales. There is not much development since the vehicles are so refined. In short they are well adapted to their environment, but at the same time destructive of the environment.”

Government can help and hinder

However, while in China government regulations have helped stimulate the electric scooter industry, in Taiwan government intervention is still not sufficient or has been misguided.

“The most obvious step for more widespread adoption is government intervention in the form of tax credits, subsidies, or increased tax on gas scooters. It can and should offer subsidizes for electric scooters to allow new manufacturers to get through at least three generations of products,” he told VR World.

Mobipus’ Tsai has a more cynical view of the government’s intervention in the electric vehicle industry.

“Taiwan’s electric scooter market has been framed by the business leaders and cheated by ex-government officials,” he told VR World.‏ “The government subsidizes wrong products for the market and tries to kill the electric scooter by setting up unreasonable regulations and subsidize underpowered, unusable products that make the public feel that electric scooters are not good enough for everyday usage‏‏.”

So although Tsai thinks Gogoro’s idea for power stations is smart he believes it won’t work without government support for acquisition of land needed for battery exchange stations and better incentives for electric technology development startups.

“The Singapore government offered me five years of income tax break, and 10 years 300% R&D expense exemption, plus three years 1% interest start up loans, and offered to invest in my company if I moved the HQ and R&D to Singapore‏,” he claims. “While Taiwan’s government would rather subsidize electric scooter manufactured in China (like e-moving), but not give any help to local Taiwan manufacturers for high-end components for EV‏.”

In some cases it’s also a matter different government approaches, since the Chinese government executive powers are simply more powerful allowing it to simply ban gas scooters in some cities, while in Taiwan’s red tape can sometimes make the process harder.

“I think Taiwan’s electric scooter won’t take off anytime soon but the tip-over point is getting closer as people realize the advantages of EV‏.”

Photo credit: Daniel Spiller

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Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Taiwan’s economy industrialized rapidly, by the 1990s becoming a high-income mature economy with a purchasing power parity (PPP) comparable to many first world economies.

Taiwan was able to do this partially because it was in the right place at the right time, but also because it built innovative companies. Taiwanese companies, with the advantage of speaking the same language, were the first into China as it opened up to the world, building with the help of Hong Kong capital, now-famous ODM/OEM firms like Foxconn (TPE: 2354) in Shenzhen, China, and at home in Taiwan the modern PC components industry with giants such as Gigabyte (TPE: 2376), Asus (TPE: 2357) and TSMC (TPE: 2330). These companies are the epitome of innovation; their respective markets didn’t really exist in the years before they were founded.

So it’s troubling when an executive from a Chinese company says that Taiwan must be more innovative and import Chinese thinking if it wants to remain competitive. During a recent Cheetah Mobile — a Chinese mobile app company with a significant presence in Taiwan —  press event in Taipei one of the company’s executives mused on stage that while Taiwan was a very important player during the PC era it lost a lot of opportunities during the mobile era because of the failure of its companies to adapt.

The CEO of Cheetah Mobile made similar comments at an event in Taipei in January, admonishing young Taiwanese for their lack of entrepreneurial drive and innovation in the workplace.

“If you go to any cafe in Zhonggguancun in Beijing, or CBD in Shenzhen, you’ll immediately hear people discussing startups and investments and dreams. In a cafe in Taipei, you’ll rarely hear this,” he is quoted as saying on stage. “Taipei lacks this energy and investment environment. So even if Taiwanese youth have dreams, how can they be fearless? There needs to be a base for fearlessness.”

This is slightly ironic, since a large part of Taiwan’s economic advantage is based on defining itself against China: Taiwanese companies are innovative, contract law is generally respected and the legal system is predictable, there’s a large educated work force to draw from.

But it’s also not incorrect, as even ministers from Taiwan’s government admit that the country is losing its edge. During a November speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, Taiwan’s Chang San-cheng, then the Minister of Science and Technology, called on young Taiwanese to become more innovative pointing out that the hyper-popular local message board PTT (analogous to Reddit in popularity) does not have a business model and relies on the support of a non-profit society.

Taiwan needs to revamp its industry to become more innovative and competitive. This begins at the top with changing the managerial culture to reward productivity, not working the longest, while figuring out how to give the bottom a fighting spirit to make it less complacent. At its best, Taiwan is more than capable of this. While the US Military Industrial Complex is prone to inefficiencies and delays, Taiwanese industry developed a domestic fighter aircraft for a reasonable cost that’s comparable to an F-16.

If Taiwan doesn’t regain its fighting competitive edge the results would be disastrous, pushing the island to economic irrelevance in fields it once dominated it. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to this.

The post When China Lectures Taiwan on Innovation, Something is Wrong appeared first on VR World.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)(TPE: 2330) said on Feb. 10 that the total volume of its sales in January hit a record high, due to the growth of the demand for the high-end 28-nm and 20-nm processors.

TSMC posted US$2.77 billion sales for January, up 25.3% from a month earlier and a massive 69.4% from a year earlier. The figure also beat the previous month-high of US$2.6 billion, which was recorded in October last year.

While the conventional wisdom always said that the first quarter of the year would always be a slow season for global semiconductor sector, TSMC’s latest performances in terms of its sales did not reflect that saying at all. Integrated circuit designers, indeed, are suffering from a slow season but they continued to place their orders to foundry operators to secure chip supply for the future. TSMC, meanwhile, is one of the benefited suppliers.

In January, TSMC forecast that its consolidated sales would range between US$7.13 billion and US$7.23 billion during first quarter. The prediction beat an earlier market forecast of a 3% to 5% drop caused by slow season effects.

TSMC said that the company will be confident of the rest of this year whether it is slow seasons. But, TSMC said that a month-on-month decline for February can be expected anyway, due to a reduced number of working days because of the Lunar New Year.

Meanwhile, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC)(TPE: 2303), TSMC’s rival, reported that its consolidated sales for January rose 5.6% from a month earlier to US$415 million on the back of solid demand for its 28nm process, fending off slow season impact. The figure for UMC’s sales in January was also up 28% from a year earlier.

The post TSMC’s Sales Hit Record High in January appeared first on VR World.

HTC (TPE: 2498) and Samsung (KRX: 005930) both introduced its new low-cost mid-tier smartphones to Taiwan on Feb. 9.

HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone maker, introduced the Desire 626, which is equipped with a 5-inch HD 720p display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage capacity, a 13-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera and 4G LTE connectivity.

HTC North Asia President Jack Tong (董俊良) described Desire 626 as a feature-rich model at a low price. Without revealing the deal date for its debut, Tong said that the new mid-tier smartphone will be available later this month at US$190 each, and it will target budget-conscious and young consumers.

“We hope that our total sale volume and market share will see significant growth this year,” Tong said.

Tong said that HTC had the highest share in each of the US$483-US$645, US$322-US$483 and US$161-US$322 phone segments in Taiwan last year, and that the company is planning to extend its success to the lower price band this year. He said that HTC is targeting a 25% share of the sub-US$161 phone segment in 2015, which will translate into an estimated 375,000 units of phone sales for HTC and boost the company’s overall market share in Taiwan by 5%.

Samsung Galaxy E7 (Photo Courtesy of Samsung)

For Samsung, HTC’s Korean rival, the new Galaxy E7 is the weapon to compete with HTC’s Desire 626.

The Galaxy E7 is Samsung’s first mid-range smartphone which comes along with a 5.5-inch display and a price tag of US$317.

The E7 also marks Samsung’s latest foray into the sub-US$322 price band, as Taiwanese smartphones priced between US$161 and US$322 accounted for about 33% of total sales last year, up from 24%.

“Samsung is a pioneer of 5.5-inch smartphones,” said Andy Tu (杜偉昱), general manager for Samsung Taiwan’s mobile communication team. “We are aiming to provide a full range of products before the Lunar New Year holiday.”

In addition to the Galaxy E7, Samsung also introduced the Galaxy E5 and the Galaxy Grand Max. The 5.25-inch Grand Max will go on sale later this month at US$257, while the price of the 5-inch E5 will be announced at a later date.

The post HTC and Samsung Introduce Mid-Tier Smartphones to Taiwan appeared first on VR World.

HTC (TPE: 2498) said on Feb. 6 that its revenue for the first quarter could fall short of analysts’ expectations but is hoping for a business boost for 2016, after it announced its partnership with Under Armour (NYSE: UA), an American sports clothing and accessories supplier.

“HTC finished 2014 with a third consecutive quarter of profitability, and is well-positioned to build on that solid platform in the year ahead by ensuring our portfolio is highly targeted and our message clearly communicated,” said Peter Chou (周永明), CEO for HTC. “Key to our improved sales performance was our ability to offer tailored product mixes at suitable price points within the regions, which enabled us to closely address the needs of specific markets.”

HTC said that the slow business came from a slow season for consumer electronics. The company estimated that the revenue for the first quarter this year will range between US$1.32 billion and US$1.43 billion, down by 6% to 13% from the US$1.54 billion seen during the fourth quarter last year.

Analysts anticipated HTC’s revenue to be flat or increase slightly sequentially based on its wider offering of smartphones and accessories. Gross profit margin for HTC was expected to slide to between 19.5% and 20% during the first quarter this year from 20.4% during the last quarter last year, with the estimated earnings per share of US$0.002 to US$0.015.

HTC said that the company stayed profitable during last quarter last year, with year-on-year revenue growth of 12%, and net income was US$16.1 million. Chou said that the company’s revenue for January was US$396 million, down 19.16% from the previous month but up 26.93% from a year earlier.

Regarding HTC’s partnership with Under Armour during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, Chief Financial Officer and Global Sales President Chang Chia-lin (張嘉臨) said that it may help boost business for 2016.

“We certainly hope that it will become more meaningful in the second half of 2015 and become more material in financial terms into 2016 and beyond,” Chang said.

Chang said that the partnership with Under Armour will drive many follow-up projects for HTC, including some “exciting” non-smartphone products that are expected to be launched in the first half of the year.

Chang, however, did not elaborate what “exciting” products he was referring to.

The post HTC Expects Shrinking Business for Q1 But a Boost for 2016, With Partnership with UA appeared first on VR World.

Acer (TPE: 2353) said that the company is confident of its business scale in 2016 after its successful efforts to return to the profit-making direction.

“I hope we can gain momentum and expand our business scale starting from 2016. In 2015, we expect to find the right direction for our business and then speed up the momentum in 2016,” said Stan Shih (施振榮), founder for Acer.

Shih said that Acer, the leading Taiwanese PC maker, has expanded from hardware manufacturing into several new business with a profitable outlook, which will pave the way for faster growth of the company in the long term.

“Acer is like a big ship sailing in the ocean, but we lost direction in the past few years. We spent the entire year steadying ourselves last year, and I think now we have found the right direction to a new continent,” Shih said.

Acer’s revenue for 2014 declined to an eight-year low of US$10.49 billion. The PC maker has been moving beyond hardware manufacturing into software and services as the PC industry remains stagnated.

Acer Chief Executive Jason Chen (陳俊聖) said that the company will continue to invest in cloud computing this year, in return of a hope be profitable by the end of 2015.

“Our goal is to keep Acer’s core business and new businesses profitable and growing this year,” Chen said.

After a management reshuffle in January 2014, Acer began to emerge from three consecutive years of operating losses. The company’s new strategy “Build Your Own Cloud” became the hope for the company to increase the gross revenue of its cloud application business in 2015 by acquiring more corporate customers and increasing the payout rate for individual users. Acer said that the company has seen the number of individual users of its free cloud services jump from five million last year to six million as of Jan. 21. Shih said that the figure was estimated to reach 10 million during the first six months of this year.

The post Acer Vows for Business Expansion in 2016 appeared first on VR World.

Inventec Corp (TPE: 2356), a mobile device maker and the major supplier for China’s Xiaomi, said that it will begin mass production at a new factory in India during the second half of 2015 as part of its overseas expansion.

Huang Kuo-chun (黃國鈞), Inventec’s general manager, said that the company’s new plant is located in Chennai, a southern city of India. The plan has been approved by the company’s board of directors on Jan. 26. Initial production is expected to start in the late second quarter or early third quarter before entering mass production in the second half of the year, Huang said.

Huang said that the new plant in India, where is the world’s third-biggest smartphone market, will be used to assemble smartphones as well as other electronic devices, while components will be purchased from local Indian suppliers.

“In addition to China, India will mark our first step toward expanding capacity,” Huang said.

In the meantime, Huang also said that it remains unclear how much the Indian factory will account for Inventec’s total capacity in the next two years.

“Inventec’s major customers are ‘optimistic’ about its investment in the Indian plant but noted that there are still some challenges for the company to enter the Indian market, including the diverse Indian languages and cultural differences,” Huang said.

For now, he said, Inventec has a smartphone assembly factory in Nanjing, China, where monthly production capacity has increased from six million units last year to eight million units currently and is estimated to reach 10 million by the end of this year.

During a press conference last month, Inventec Chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said that the company’s shipments of mobile devices were estimated to increase from 30 million units in 2014 to 50 million in 2015, helped largely by the increasing orders from major customers like Xiaomi and growth in tablet computers.

Xiaomi, the leading Chinese smartphone maker, sold a total of 61.1 million smartphones in 2014, tripled from 18.7 million units in 2013. The “Chinese Apple” aimed to ship 100 million smartphones this year, of which Inventec is expected to receive 50% of the orders.

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Siemens AG’s (ETR: SIE) Taiwan branch said that its revenue this year will grow at a similar rate as Taiwan’s economy.

“We are aiming to grow on average at least as much as the country’s GDP is growing. That’s our target,” said Erdal Elver, president and chief executive officer for Siemens Taiwan.

Elver made his remarks during a year-end press conference in Taipei. Taiwanese government and several economic research organizations predicted that Taiwan’s GDP for 2015 should fall between 3.28% and 3.6%. Elver said that Siemens recorded a revenue growth rate last year that was “similar” to Taiwan’s economic growth of 3.51%, but he did not give an exact figure.

Elver said that Siemens’ global business has made substantive progress in the intensely competitive international environment, with its new orders reaching US$88.9 billion and revenues totaling US$81.5 billion for the fiscal year of 2014.

Siemens’ revenues for 2014, Elver said, increased 1% from the previous fiscal year of 2013, as the company registered the net income of

The company registered net income of US$6.3 billion, an increase of 25% from the fiscal year of 2013. Elver said that Siemens Taiwan will continue to promote its “Grow Taiwan Together” initiative and provide solutions in key areas such as sustainable energy, future of manufacturing and intelligent urban infrastructure.

“Siemens Taiwan continues to embrace its commitment to Taiwan and strives to forge a sustainable future for Taiwan’s energy and industrial sectors,” Elver said.

In the area of smart manufacturing, Elver said, Siemens is introducing digital factory and advanced manufacturing concepts to Taiwan with the focus on integrating the entire industrial value chain on both the digitalization and automation levels.

“This will significantly boost flexibility and efficiency for Taiwanese manufacturers in product development while shortening the time needed for these products to reach the market,” Elver said.

The post Siemens Taiwan Vows to Grow ‘as Taiwan’s Economy’ appeared first on VR World.

The latest Hurun Global Rich List 2015 said that Want Want Group Chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) is the richest man in Taiwan.

Hurun said that Tsai owns a total asset of at least US$10 billion.

The ranking, which was made for billionaires around the world, was compiled and organized by Chinese magazine Hurun Report and sponsored by Star River Property, a Chinese luxury home builder. The annual ranking listed a total of 48 Taiwanese people on this year’s rich man chart. Among them, former Taiwanese vice president Lien Chan (連戰) is the only listed man who is not a businessman but owns a total asset of US$6.1 billion. In addition, Lien is also the first Taiwanese politician to be listed on the Hurun Report.

For those listed Chinese billionaires, the richest man is Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), chairman of Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Group (HKG: 0001), who has a fortune of US$32 billion.

 Hong Kong real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee (李兆基) followed Li’s ranking as the second richest Chinese man with US$26.5 billion.

The richest man in China is Hanergy Holdings Chairman Li Hejun (李河君) with total assets of US$26 billion, followed by Dalian Wanda Group (HKG: 3699) Chairman Wang Jianlin (王健林) with US$25 billion and Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) Chairman Jack Ma (馬雲) with his assets of US$24.5 billion.

Bill Gates, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder, remains on the top of the chart with a fortune of US$85 billion. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican telecommunications mogul, checks in the second place on the chart with his assets of US$83 billion, followed by American investor Warren Buffett with US$76 billion, Hurun said.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder for Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), is on the 7^th place with US$44 billion.

Hurun said that there are 2,089 people with a fortune of at least US$1 billion, including 537 Americans and 430 Chinese billionaires.

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More than two telecom operators, foreign and domestic, are interested in becoming the majority shareholder and the actual operator for the telecom company Taiwan Star, as the scandal-plagued food conglomerate Ting Hsin Group has been trying to sell its stakes.

Taiwan Star Chairman Wei Ying-chiao (魏應交), who also heads the Ting Hsin Group, confirmed on Feb. 2 that Ting Hsin will withdraw from Taiwan Star by selling its 52% stake in the telecom company.

Chunghwa Telecom (TPE: 2412) and Far EasTone Telecommunications (TPE: 4904) are the two potential buyers who have been confirmed for their contacting Ting Hsin for potential acquisition of its 52% stake of Taiwan Star. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (TPE: 2317) is also a potential buyer although the long-term supplier for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has already owned the Asia Pacific Telecom (TPE: 3682). In addition, Ting Hsin also confirmed that Japan-based telecom operator KDDI (TYO: 9433) has been discussing the potential deal with them during the past few months.

When approached for responses, Taiwan Star declined to elaborate or reveal more details.

“It was inappropriate for my company to comment on a possible buyout o the stake owned by Ting Hsin at this moment,” said Cliff Lai (賴弦五) ,president for Taiwan Star.

In addition to Ting Hsin, Taiwan Star’s other shareholders are Cathay Financial Holding Co (TPE: 2882), which holds a 20% stake, Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co (TPE: 2392) and the Kingpo Group, which both have 10% stakes, and the CTBC Group (TPE: 2891), which has an 8% stake.

When approached, Cathay Financial Holdings President Lee Chang-ken (李長庚) said that the Taiwan Star stake it owns is part of its financial strategy and the company has no plan to make any change of it as of now.

Why is Ting Hsin selling its stake?

Ting Hsin was impacted by an edible oil scandal that was made front page stories last October, when its subsidiaries were discovered to be selling cooking oils containing ingredients unfit for human consumption. The scandal sparked outrage among local consumers, who launched a nationwide boycott of Ting Hsin’s products and services, including Taiwan Star.

The increasing condemnation of the conglomerate’s business practices have made it more difficult for the group to survive in Taiwan, while its cash flow was seriously affected at the same time. Ting Hsin then began to sell its shares of Taiwan Star, Taipei 101 and its flagship food unit Wei Chuan Foods Corp (TPE: 1201) because of its negative public image.

Wei Ying-chung (魏應充), Wei Ying-chiao’s brother and former chairman of Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co, has been detained for the cooking oil scandal since last October but was released on US$3.22 million bail on Jan. 28. Changhua District Court decided to maintain its decision to grant bail to Wei and declined the appeal by prosecutors. The ruling came after the Taiwan High Court ordered the lower court to reconsider its decision to allow Wei to be released on the US$3.22 million. On Feb. 3, Changhua District Court again granted Wei’s bail but increased the amount to US$9.66 million.

In the meantime, the court also upheld its previous decision to release three other defendants in the case, including former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat President Chang Mei-fang (常梅峰), the company’s former acting chairman Chen Mao-chia (陳茂嘉), and Yang Chen-yi (楊振益), who owns the Vietnamese trading company Dai Hanh Phuc Co — on US$161,290 bail.

In November 2013, Wei Ying-chung was indicted on charges of fraud as part of an investigation into the 2013 Taiwan food scandal. In October 2014, prosecutors launched a separate investigation into the 2014 Taiwan food scandal, that alleged a unit of Ting Hsin International Group over sale of tainted cooking oil.

Investigators discovered that Cheng-I Food Co, a subsidiary company of Ting Hsin, was alleged for mixing animal feed oil with cooking oil and then selling it to the public.

Regarding Ting Hsin’s attempts to sell its 33.17% stakes of Taipei 101, no further decision or agreement was made as of press time, now that Ting Hsin has been trying to close the deal with Malaysia’s IOI Properties Group Bhd since last November, especially the case has been declined by the Taiwanese government, due to a policy that the major shareholder of the building should not be a foreign investment.

The real price of the deal was never confirmed but Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance estimated that Ting Hsin could have made profits of at least US$636 million but the group will only have to pay a tax amount of approximately US$33 million.

The Ting Hsin International Group, headquartered in Taipei and Tianjin, was established by Wei Ing-chou (魏應州), Wei Ying-jiao, Wei Ying-chung and Wei Ying-xin (魏應行) in 1958. As natives from Yungching Township, Changhua County, the Weis also own Wei Chuan, FamilyMart, and Master Kong instant noodles as subsidiary brand names under Ting Hsin.

Ting Hsin purchased 33.17% of Taipei 101’s shares and became the major shareholder for the building since 2009.

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Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its Taiwan rival Acer (TPE: 2353) finished its fiscal year of 2014 with similar number of shipments for laptops, TrendForce said in its latest research.

Last year, Apple posted a spectacular 46.4% annual growth in laptop shipments, owing to its price-lowering strategy for its MacBook laptops, which resulted in a takeover of the mid-range and premium market segments, TrendForce said.

The high growth boosted Apple’s global market share to 9.3% in 2014, vaulting the company into sixth place in the global rankings, one spot behind Acer, which had a 10% market share.

Acer depended on its remarkable performance of its Chromebook laptops to maintain its shipment volume in the market. Although there was no significant rise in Acer’s total shipments, the company managed to slow its slide, dropping only one place in the global rankings last year, the research firm said.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Asus (TPE: 2357) expanded its global market share to 11%, leaping into fourth place in the rankings.

Its performance was attributed mainly to the success of its 10.1-inch, 2-in-1 model T100 laptop, which accounted for over 10% of the company’s total shipments in 2014.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) remained the lead in the 2014 global laptop market with a 20.1% share, followed by Lenovo (HKG: 0992) with a 17.5% share, and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) with 12.3%.

TrendForce said that global notebook shipments in 2014 totaled 175.5 million units, up by an annual 3.6%, boosted by the replacement of the Windows XP operating system and the promotion of low-priced notebooks by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

“In 2015, the laptop market will only be able to maintain the same overall shipment level as last year, and the growth of some brands will come at the expense of others,” said Caroline Chen (陳虹燕), assistant research manager for TrendForce’s WitsView.

She forecasted that HP and its major rival Lenovo will continue to hold the top two spots this year, while the competition will remain tight between the third and the sixth places.

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Jeff Gordon, HTC’s (TPE: 2498) senior global online communications manager, described iPhone as a “boring” handset due to its lack of unique features on his tweeter on Jan. 28, despite Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) record-high quarterly revenues.

“Congrats to Apple on an amazing quarter. It’s not that I dislike Apple — in fact I use a MacBook Air — but that I find the iPhone terribly boring,” he said. “The iPhone is ‘a boring, easy choice’ that fails to fit his desire for ‘a phone that’s more unique, more personal, more stunning when I take it out of my pocket.’”

Gordon’s remarks were referred to Apple’s selling a higher-than-expected 74.5 million iPhones and generating a record-high US$74.6 billion in revenues in the last quarter of 2014, led by the new big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Gordon said that his company’s 2015 product roadmap will be “best ever,” with “some huge surprises that will blow you away,” but he did not elaborate.

HTC has invited the press to an event which was scheduled to be organized on March 1, which will be one day before the Mobile World Congress tech fair that will take place in Barcelona between March 2 and March 5.

He did not elaborate.

Earlier this month, the Taoyuan-based phone vendor sent out invitations to media outlets for an event to be held March 1, one day before the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tech fair that will take place in Barcelona between March 2 and March 5. HTC did not reveal any detail of the event but it was speculated that the company will launch the successor to its flagship HTC One M9 during the event, which will also be the world’s largest mobile phone trade show, in a bid to steal the spotlight from other handset manufacturers.

In the meantime, “Hima,” which will come along with a 5-inch quad-HD screen with a resolution of 1440X2560 pixels, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core chipset, 3GB of RAM, a 20.7 –megapixel rear camera, a 13-megapixel front camera and a 3,500mAh battery, is alleged to be the next-generation HTC flagship phone.

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The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Jan. 30 that Taiwan’s economy grew 3.51% last year, slightly above the government’s earlier forecast of 3.43%.

DGBAS said that the nation registered a real GDP growth of 3.17% during the last quarter of 2014, beating its own estimate in November of 2.83%. The DGBAS said that despite a series of food safety scandals and crisis in Taiwan during the fourth quarter last year, the domestic economy remained steady and continued to grow, which was the main reason to beat its own forecast last November.

Quoting its statistics, DGBAS said that during the period between October and December, Taiwan’s exports in electronics, machinery and base metal all increased, while outbound sales in gasoline/diesel and plastics/rubber products offset total exports.

The DGBAS said that after inflationary adjustment, real exports in merchandise and services during the fourth quarter last year showed the year-on-year growth of 5.57%, while merchandise and services imports grew 4.59% from the previous year. In the meantime, retail sales for the fourth quarter were boosted by a 4.31% year-on-year sales growth in the auto industry.

DGBAS said, however, the statistics showed that the food safety scandals during the last quarter for 2014 did hurt consumer sentiment to some extent. A positive factor, however, was the local government elections in late November, which boosted spending during the campaign period, the DGBAS said, which became a reason that retail revenue in Taiwan grew 3.08% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, and private consumption increased 2.33%.

DGBAS’ statistics also showed that fixed capital formation also increased, rising 2.19% from a year earlier. Capital equipment imports, however, showed a 1.74% plunge as a result of a higher comparison base in the same period of 2013.

As for the first three quarters of 2014, DGBAS said, Taiwan’s GDP grew 3.41%, 3.87% and 3.63%, respectively.

The DGBAS was scheduled to issue a preliminary report on the nation’s GDP growth for the whole of 2014 and an updated forecast for 2015 sometime in the upcoming February. In its most recent prediction last November, it forecast a 3.50% growth for 2015.

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A latest survey said on Jan. 30 that approximately 87% of employers in Taiwan, foreign and domestic, will offer year-end bonuses to their employees this year.

The poll was conducted by the 1111 Job Bank while a total of 540 employers in Taiwan participated in the questionnaire. Approximately 86.53% of them said that they have prepared related year-end bonuses to their employees and will issue them before the Lunar New Year, which will fall on Feb. 19 this year.

Statistics of the annual survey by the 1111 Job Bank showed that approximately 94.72% of employers in Taiwan said that they were offering year-end bonuses in 2006, and the figure continued to go down until this year. The job bank said that the higher percentage of those employers who are willing to offer the year-end bonuses reflected a recovery in both domestic and global economy.

Prior to the survey, the government released an advance estimate earlier, saying that that Taiwan’s GDP grew 3.51% last year, beating its previous forecast of a 3.43% increase.

Due to an improvement in earnings, the survey discovered that most employers will issue year-end bonuses equivalent to 1.34 months of monthly paychecks on average, up from 1.33 months which was seen a year earlier. The figure was a high since 2011, when the average year-end bonuses equaled 1.41 months of salary.

Quoting the survey, the job bank said that 17.4% of the employers who will issue bonuses said that their employees are expected to get higher year-end bonuses this year. In the meantime, 56% of the employers said that they will issue bonuses based on employee performances, while 31.1% of them said that they will take seniority into consideration.

Among all the various industries, the survey said, the manufacturing sector, which has got a boost from rising global demand, will offer the most amount year-end bonuses to their employees, followed by the financial sector and the services sector.

The job bank said, however, the year-end bonuses to be issued by the property development sector will lag behind these three sectors as the local housing market has been sluggish. Employees from the property sector, however, have enjoyed the fattest checks for their year-end bonuses last year, the job bank said.

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