Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), the nation’s second-largest container shipper in terms of fleet size, said it expects business this year to improve quarter-by-quarter amid recovering demand.
The container shipping sector has maintained relatively higher freight rates, especially for routes to Europe, since the beginning of this year, thanks to strong seasonal demand before the Lunar New Year holiday.
“The business in the first quarter this year will be slightly better than the same period last year,” Yang Ming chairman Frank Lu (盧峰海) told reporters yesterday.
Lu said it is still challenging for the company to return to the black this year, as demand on routes to both the US and Asia faded after the holiday.
There are two factors that are key to container shippers’ near-term prospects, he said.
One is whether the freight rates remain at the current levels, and the other is whether the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement’s (TSA) plan to raise its general rate by US$300 per 40-foot equivalent unit (FEU) from next month can be successfully executed, he said.
However, Lu said he is not that worried about the oversupply issue for this year because major container shippers are likely to scrap more ships this year than last year, after they take delivery of more large vessels with higher efficiency later this year.
The global container shipping sector retired a total of 68,138 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of capacity last month, accounting for 0.3 percent of overall capacity in the sector, compared with 461,298 TEUs scrapped for the whole of last year, Lu said, citing data from Alphaliner, a research institute for the container shipping sector.
Other than the container shipping business, Yang Ming will also leverage Kao Ming Container Terminal Corp (高明貨櫃碼頭) — its container terminal operator subsidiary in Kaohsiung Harbor — to raise its profitability this year.
Kao Ming, in which Yang Ming holds a 47.5 percent stake, is to see its second-phase construction completed in June and begin operations in September.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
STIMULUS PLANS: An official said that China would increase funding from special treasury bonds and expand another program focused on key strategic sectors China is to sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds this year to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official told a news conference yesterday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalize its faltering economy. Special treasury bonds would be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da (袁達), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. “The size of ultra-long special government bond funds will be sharply increased this year to intensify and expand the implementation of the two new initiatives,” Yuan said. Under the program launched last year, consumers can
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
RSS