Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空) yesterday said it has finished upgrading the air force’s F-16A/B jets to F-16Vs and hopes the experience will help it secure F-16 aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) business.
The retrofitting program has seen AIDC help upgrade 139 F-16A/Bs into more advanced F-16Vs since 2017, with the last jet completing its test flight early this month, the defense contractor said.
“AIDC will continue to utilize the capability of its F-16 Maintenance Center to win business concerning newly purchased F16Vs, as well as F-16 MRO and lifespan extension services,” the company said in a document released following its earnings conference.
Photo: Wang Yi-hung, Taipei Times
The Taichung-based firm said it also expects to complete delivery of 66 advanced jet trainers by the end of 2026, after the last four of 17 indigenous advanced jet trainers scheduled for this year flew from Taichung to the air force base in Taitung County on Tuesday last week.
With the increased number of deliveries of advanced jet trainers, AIDC is gearing up for related maintenance and proposing one-stop services, including military aircraft research and development, jet production and MRO services, the company said.
As the global aviation industry is on track for a full recovery, AIDC said it is optimistic about next year’s outlook.
Going forward, the company would expand its business in the fields of defense (such as performance upgrades and drones), commercial (concentrating on fuselage, door and engine-related business) and technology services (focusing on carbon reduction business and energy management system and building management system technologies), it said.
Since its establishment in 1969, AIDC has participated in several military projects such as producing indigenous defense fighter jets and advanced jet trainers; offering F-16 performance upgrades and maintenance services; and providing maintenance services for various aircraft such as UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and C-130 transport planes.
The firm reported consolidated revenue of NT$35.8 billion (US$1.14 billion) in the first 11 months of this year, an increase of 31.97 percent from a year earlier.
Net profit in the first three quarters totaled NT$1.96 billion, up 42.53 percent year-on-year and surpassing the total for the whole of last year, with earnings per share of NT$2.08, company data showed.
As the commercial aerospace industry is forecast to see a substantial recovery next year after labor and component shortages are alleviated, the commercial business will become AIDC’s main growth driver going forward, Capital Investment Management Corp (群益投顧) said in a note.
While the firm's sales and earnings from defense business will soon plateau, it will continue to benefit from the increase in the nation's defense spending as Taiwan aims to strengthen its military's combat capabilities, Capital Investment said.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
RSS