Automotive components maker Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co (和大工業) on Friday held a beam-raising ceremony at its new manufacturing plant in the Chiayi Dapumei Precision Machinery Park (嘉義大埔美精密機械園區).
The new facilities include a smart plant with automated production lines and a dormitory for 300 employees.
BIG INVESTMENTS
Photo: Lin Yi-chang, Taipei Times
Hota is investing NT$4.2 billion (US$140.23 million) in the new plant and aims to start production by the end of next year to supply components for electric vehicles for US and European clients.
The company, which supplies Tesla Inc and BorgWarner Inc, already operates two plants in the same industrial park.
Together with the new plant, Hota has so far invested NT$14 billion in the park, Chinese-language media reported on Friday.
The company has proposed investing an additional NT$8 billion in a fourth plant with eight to 10 production lines and building an industrial museum in the same park, Hota chairman David Shen (沈國榮) said to the Commercial Times.
However, due to COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe, the US and other countries, major automakers have decreased production, so Hota is expecting lower revenue this year, Shen said.
In the first four months of this year, cumulative revenue fell 20.78 percent year-on-year to NT$1.58 billion, company data showed.
However, with reopenings in Europe and the US, major automakers are resuming production and have begun to replenish their inventories, Shen said.
Hota’s business is expected to stabilize and would gradually return to a growth track next month, he added.
The company on Thursday reported a net income of NT$143.7 million in the first quarter, down 25.3 percent year-on-year, with earnings per share of NT$0.56.
POSITIVE OUTLOOK
Due to decreased demand and lower capacity utilization in late March, the company’s gross margin fell to 26.42 percent and operating margin fell to 11.53 percent in the first quarter, compared with 29.22 percent and 15.17 percent in the same period of last year respectively.
Analysts said that Hota’s revenue is expected to grow in the third and fourth quarters, driven by production increases in Tesla’s China-based factories, rebounding orders for electric vehicles from other brands and the recovery of the US auto market.
Hota’s shift to automated production lines might also drive a higher gross margin in the latter half of the year, analysts said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
RSS