| Prime News | | ![]() | ![]() | Cabinet Approves Consolidation of Securities and Futures Markets
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--The Executive Yuan (the Cabinet) approved a proposal yesterday (Oct. 3), calling for incorporation of the four securities and futures bodies, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) Corp., the Taiwan Futures Exchange Corp. (TFE), the GreTai Securities Market, and Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp, into a holing firm, to facilitate connection of the Taiwanese securities and futures market with the international market.
To realize the project, the GreTai Securities Market will first be incorporated to facilitate share swap with the other three bodies for the formation of the holding firm, which will then oversee consolidation of their operations in one to three years, shifting all equity trading on the GreTai Market (over-the-counter market) now to TSE, while leaving the latter with only trading for Emerging Enterprise Market shares and bonds. The holding firm will fund the establishment of an independent supervisory center to oversee the market trading order.
For that purpose, the Executive Yuan will forward the revised draft of the "Securities Trading Law" to the Legislative Yuan for ratification soon.
In line with the international trend, the projected holding firm will invite foreign shareholding, which, though, may be capped with the aggregate ceiling of 15-20% and individual ceiling of 5%.
Wu Rong-i, TSE chairman, reported that New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ have both expressed interest in owning 5% stake in the company, while the Deutsche Borse Group is also interested in taking 1-2% stake.
The consolidated market will boast over 1,200 listed firms and NT$24.6 trillion of market value, with the latter ranking 21st place worldwide.
Wu Tang-chieh, director general of the Securities & Futures Bureau, under the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), pointed out that formation of the holding firm can achieve multiple benefits, including connection with the international market via a single window, enhancing business performance via consolidation of resources, reduction of operational cost, augmentation of market security, and assurance of supervisory independence and efficiency.
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| | ![]() | | | China's Largest Budget-Hotel Chain Plans to Tap Taiwanese Market
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Attracted by possible opening up of visit of Chinese tourists to Taiwan and the island's booming realty market, the Home Inn Group, China's largest budget-hotel chain, plans to extend its reach to the Taiwanese market, according to Sun Jian, chief executive officer of the group, who is on a market investigative trip to Taiwan now.
Sun has met with many Taiwanese hoteliers, including Chinatrust Hotel, and carried out in-depth study of the local tourism-industry environment. "Chance for the Home Inn Group to invest in Taiwan is high and I expect to see appearance of our yellow-colored hotels in Taipei City soon," said Sun.
Founded in 2002, the Home Inn Group has highlighted the low-cost appeal, with its room rate reaching only 200 yuan (NT$900) per night now, whose operation plunged to nadir during the SARS epidemic but recovered strongly after 2004, cashing in on China's fast growing tourism market and becoming the largest budget hotel chain there.
With 300 hotels under its auspices, the group listed its share on the NASDAQ last October, with IPO (initial public offering) price reaching US$13.8, which has soared to US$36 now. Backed by abundant foreign capital, the group has been expanding its chains rapidly over the past year, targeting to boost the number of its chains to 1,000 in three years and becoming the world's largest hotel brand.
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| | ![]() | | | Taiwan Machine-tool Makers Reap Harvest at EMO Hannover 2007
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Thanks to the increased demand for Taiwan-made machine tools, most of Taiwan's participants in the EMO Hannover 2007, the world's largest exhibition in the machine-tool field, claimed they saw substantial growth in orders landed at the show compared to two years ago.
The six-day EMO Hannover 2007 ended on Sept. 22 at the Messe Hannover of Germany. Taiwanese exhibitors who landed orders of more than 100 machine tools include She Hong Industrial Co., Yeong Chin Machinery Industries Co., Tongtai Machine & Tool Co., Goodway Machine Corp., Awea Mechantronic Co., Falcon (Chevalier) Machine Tools Co., Quaser Machine Tools Inc., and Far East Machinery Co.; while Hiwin Technology Corp., Taiwan's leading manufacturer of linear-based mechanical components, also made great strides to sign up orders at the show.
Of them, Hiwin claimed it has signed a three-year supply contract with DMG, the largest manufacturer of machine tools in the whole of Europe. In addition, the company has also acquired orders from Heller Co., the well-known manufacturer of automobile processing equipment in Europe. With the acquisition of the big-ticket orders, the company predicted its sales in the European marketplace will double to reach 50 million euro next year to become one of Europe's top-three suppliers of linear motion parts.
The big-ticket orders snatched up by these leading manufacturers will help domestic machine-tool industry keep its double-digit growth in annual sales in 2008.
Yeh Hsin-hua, president of She Hong, said his company displayed latest-developed machine tools at the 27th Hall of the EMO Hannover 2007 which happened to locate many big names of Germany, Japan, the U.S. and South Korea. Yeh claimed his company received orders of 100-storng machine tools worth over NT$300 million (US$9.23 million) during the six-day show.
Tongtai said it landed on-the-spot orders of some 60 machine tools at the show with customers mainly coming from aerospace parts and mold sectors. The company said demand for machine tools by the components manufacturers of Europe has been on the rise.
Others like Falcon (Chevalier), Goodway, Awea, Quaser, and Far East all boasted that they received orders of tens of various types of machine tools at the show with some even landing huge orders for some 100 machines.
In addition to the manufacturers of machine tools, upstream manufacturers focusing on the production of precision mechanical components and parts, including Pou Yuen Technology Corp., Golden Sun Industrial Co., and Habor Precision Industry Co. also made great achievements in selling their products at the same show.
Wang Cheng-ching, vice president of the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry, said Europe and Asia will become the two engines driving the global machine-tool industry to continue growing in 2008. He predicted Taiwan's machine-tool industry will see double-digit growth in both production and exports next year.
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| | ![]() | | | Taiwan May Become No.3 in Global Exports of Machine Tools in 2007
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--With information exchanges among industrial associations in major producing nations of machine tools worldwide, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI) predicted Taiwan's overall production value for machine tools will reach between US$4 billion and US$4.5 billion this year to become the world's fifth-largest producing nation and challenge the world's third spot in terms of exports.
Wang Cheng-ching, vice president of TAMI, said the global machine-tool industry has been performing very strong since the beginning of this year because of the demand push from the so-called BRIC nations, which include Brazil, Russia, India and mainland China.
The machine-tool industry association of both Germany and Japan each claimed they would be able to score US$12 billion in annual production value this year. But Germany will see a 10% annual growth in production value of machine tools this year, surpassing that of Japan's. Mainland China is the world's third-largest producing nation of machine tools at US$10 billion this year, followed by Italy at US$6 billion.
With annual production value of between US$4 billion and US$4.5 billion, Taiwan is expected to rank as the world's fifth-largest or sixth-largest producing nations this year, depending on the performance of South Korea for the rest of this year.
In terms of export value, Germany predicted it would be able to export machine tools of between US$8 billion and US$9 billion this year, far exceeding Japan with US$6 billion.
Italy predicted that it would export US$3.6 billion worth of machine tools this year, only US$200 million more than the US$3.4 billion projected for Taiwan. TAMI said there is a gleam of twilight for Taiwan to replace Italy as the world's third-largest exporter of machine tool this year.
The Mechanical Industry Research Laboratories under the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute said foreign large-sized manufacturers of machine tools are preparing for taping the high-tier market by investing in the research and development of system software applied to manufacturing processes and after-sale services. The MIRL calls for domestic manufacturers in this field to follow suit.
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| | ![]() | | | MediaTek Opens Japanese Branch to Boost Market Share
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Taiwanese fabless house MediaTek Inc. recently opened a branch in Japan along with a sales outlet in Shin Yokohama and a research and development facility in Akihabara as part of the company's plan to boost market share in the top Asian economy, according to company chairman, M.K. Tsai.
Tsai said the company will mainly increase sales of its chips for digital camera, chips for blue-ray DVD players, chips for high-definition televisions, and chips for global positioning systems (GPSs) in Japanese.
According to Tsai, his company has landed Sony's orders for its DVD-player chips and expects to win camera-chip orders from Matsushita and Pentax. Industry watchers expect more Japanese DVD-player makers to accept MediaTek's chips after supplying to Sony.
MediaTek, currently Taiwan's No.1 chip design house, plans to begin placing emphasis on sales in Japan next year. Early this year, the company acquired Japanese camera-chip designer NuCORE, another advantage for the Taiwanese company to make foray into Japanese market.
NuCORE's chips have been installed in digital cameras supplied by JVC, Panasonic and Pentax, making it a definite rival to Texas Instruments (TI) and Zoran in Japanese digital-camera chip market.
According to some news wires, Tsai said in Japan his company started doing business with personal-computer chips and now has placed emphasis on chips for consumer electronics like DVD players, mobile phones and digital TVs. He added that his company will more aggressively tap market of digital-camera chips and has begun chips for entry models of digital cameras.
Industry watchers consider MediaTek's attempt to boost sales in Japan as a strategy to switch accessing developed markets from developing markets, such as mainland China.
Thriving mainland Chinese market of generic handsets has brought MediaTek exploding orders, likely putting its revenue for last month at NT$10 billion (US$303 million) landmark.
Meantime, the company has successfully pumped its HDTV chips into supply chains of Samsung and Phillips. The company projects strong shipments of the chips this quarter since fourth quarter is normally a busy season for consumer electronics.
Tsai is much sure about that his company will have revenue of more than US$2 billion throughout this year. Some foreign institutional investors estimated the company will likely have over US$2.5 billion this year and likely made money equaling to its capitalization last quarter alone.
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| | ![]() | | | Winbond to Spin Off Logic Device Business
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Chipmaker Winbond Electronics Corp. recently announced it will spin off its logic business unit into an independent company so that it can completely focus on memory chip business.
Industry watchers pointed out once the split is done Winbond will become another dedicated memory chipmaker after PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC), Nanya Technology Corp., ProMos Technologies Inc. and Inotera Memories Inc.
Currently, the company's logic business turns out revenue of around NT$1 billion (US$30 million at US$1:NT$33) a month, accounting for around 30% of its total revenue. Major product lines include voice ICs and computer input/output chips.
Winbond plans to allocate its only 15mm wafer fab to the split business, retaining only a 300mm fab for memory-chip manufacturing. The 150mm fab now puts out 50,000 wafers of chips using 0.35-micron node as its best process technology. After spin-off, Winbond will count on niche memory chips for around 30% of its revenue.
The company's 300mm fab is running at full capacity, putting out 26,000 to 27,000 wafers a month. The company has started plan to build another 300mm fab. Once the planned factory is completed in the third quarter next year, Winbond's two factories will have a combined output of 35,000 wafers a month.
The spin-off is part of the company's plan to restructure its five business groups. The restructuring plan kicked off on October 1.
The spin-off comes in the wake of the company's stream of asset selling. Over the past few years, the company has sold drive IC asset to affiliate Cheertek Inc. and a 200mm wafer fab to Vanguard Semiconductor International Corp. (VSIC).
Winbond executives pointed out that the company's board had approved the spin-off project and preliminarily divided the company's business into consumer IC, computer-application IC, DRAM design, flash-memory design and memory-chip making groups. They noted that in the future the company will also likely organize its consumer IC and computer-application IC groups into independent companies.
Industry watchers said that Winbond is the last integrated device manufacturer (IDM) of Taiwan's chip-making industry to end memory-logic business model. They noted that chipmakers producing the two categories of chips simultaneously usually lead them to lose focus and spend tremendous research and development resources.
United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), currently the world's No.2 pure silicon foundry supplier, is a very typical model proving how an IDM made a successful transformation to a pure foundry despite developmental bottlenecks as an IDM. UMC has spun off many of its business groups into independent fabless houses.
Industry watchers expected the spin-off would likely make Winbond a more efficient chipmaker and, thus, make it a more profitable company.
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| | ![]() | | | Makers of Notebook PC PCBs Enjoy Lucrative Operations
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Thanks to the increasingly strong demand for notebook PCs, both Gold Circuit Electronics Co. and HannStar Board Corp., the world's top-two notebook PC printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturers in Taiwan, are expected to continue set new monthly revenue records.
Thanks to the impact from the new Santa Rosa platform and the strong back-to-school demand peak, according to SinoPac Securities, the total shipment volume of Taiwan-based contract notebook PC producers grew by 11% in August from previous month and the growth trend is expected to continue in September. The securities firm estimated that the volume is expected to enjoy a 25% quarterly increase in the third quarter.
Though some market information reported a supply shortage of key notebook PC parts in the past few months, yet both Gold Circuit and HannStar Board's monthly revenues saw clear growths in the third quarter without suffering any impact.
According to both HannStar Board, the world's No. 1 notebook PC-use PCB supplier, and Gold Circuit, the No. 2, the customer demands are still very strong no matter whether there is a supply shortage of key notebook PC parts.
Both the two companies' revenues in July and August continuously hit record highs and both are optimistic about continuously hitting new records September. Gold Circuit claimed that all of its production capacity in October has been fully filled with flooding orders.
According to Gold Circuit, big orders for notebook PC and consumer electronic PCBs began flooding into the company from July, and the orders have occupied all October capacity as well as a big part of that in November. The company's plant in Changshu, Jiangsu Province of mainland China is scheduled to add additional monthly capacity of 600,000 square meters (to 1.2 million square meters), while its facility in Suzhou of Jiangsu Province about 300,000 square meters (to 1.5 million square meters).
Gold Circuit said that its Suzhou facility is expected to turn profitable in the second half and the newly added capacity would be utilized to produce mainly thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) module-use PCBs. While its plant in Changshu has been profitable since mass production in late 2006.
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| | ![]() | | | European Car Importers to Raise Prices
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Major European-car importers plan to hike the prices of cars shipped after July so as to reflect the added cost from the sharply appreciating euro.
Local importers of European brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, Saab, etc. are expected to raise prices by 5%.
Importers of some Japanese car brands, however, are also planning to hike prices due to currency floating and upgraded quotes by Japanese automakers. Yulon Nissan Motor Co., the local agent of imported Nissan and Infiniti luxury cars, for example, plans to adjust up an average 3% of the prices of its 2008 year models.
The car importers explained that the euro-NT dollar exchange rate has sharply risen from about 1 euro:NT$43 in early this year to 1 euro: NT$46.3 now, up over 8%.
In addition, most foreign automakers have been elevating their quoting for new-year models to reflect highflying material costs. Some local auto importers said that they are forced to hike prices as foreign automakers have transferred a 15% or -higher cost on them.
The car importers, however, admitted that amid sluggish domestic new-car sales, now is not a good time to hike prices, and they might try to reduce preferential terms and scales of sales campaigns to reduce losses.
Land Rover Taiwan, one of the few imported car brands enjoyed sales growth in this year, took the lead to announce the prices for its 2008 year models. The local subsidiary plans to adjust up the retail prices of the Freelander 2, Discovery 3 etc. luxury sport utility vehicle (LSUV) models by NT$100,000 to NT$200,000 (US$3,030 to US$6,060 at US$1: NT$33), or 5% to 7%, from previous-year models. The average price-hike rate of the hot-selling diesel-engine models are higher than that of gasoline-engine counterparts.
The prices of Audi's imported car models will also climb by 3% to 5%.
With a goal to continue its No. 1 position among all imported car brands in Taiwan this year, Beldare Ltd., the local agent of imported Volkswagen (VW) cars, said that it would not immediately hike model prices but admitted that it would try to downscale its sales preferential terms.
Local distributors of Mercedes-Benz said that the general local agent has informed them that there would be at least 5% increase on 2008 models.
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| | ![]() | | | Taiwan's Economic Indicator Goes Green for 3rd Consecutive Month in August
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Taiwan's economic monitoring indicator in August flashed the third consecutive "green" light with the composite index remained unchanged at 30 points, according to the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD).
CEPD indicated that industrial production, export orders, and real exports showed pretty good performance in August, with index indicators all signaling red light as a result. However, in the same month the index of real machineries and electrical equipment imports, influenced by weak private spending and investment, posted a yellow-blue light.
In August the average stock capitalization weighted index stood at 8,757, dropped by 601 from a month earlier, however, the figure shot up by 33.7% from that in the same month of last year.
CEPD started in July to adopt a new index to monitor Taiwan's economic climate, revising some components for both leading and coincident indices. During the month, the leading index edged up by 0.4% to 147 and the annualized 6-month rate of change of composite leading index posted at 4.8%, also higher than the corresponding percentage of a month earlier. The coincident index witnessed fourth monthly consecutive growth of 1%, implying continuing upward economic trend.
CEPD explained that the leading index is used to forecast the economic outlook for the next three months and the coincident index to assess the economic climate in a given month. It further pointed out that export orders and average monthly overtime in industry and services were major contributors to the rise of leading index while industrial production and exports were to coincident index.
CEPD officials said that Taiwan's external trade usually enters its hot season in September. So, they believed that the island's economic monitoring indicator might turn yellow-red light in September so long as the index of exports, manufacturing sales, or retailing sales gain additional couple points for the month.
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| | ![]() | | | Taiwan's Retailers See Revenues Grow 4.1% to NT$287 B. in July
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--Taiwan's retailing industry raked in revenue of NT$287 billion (US$8.7 billion at US$1 = NT$33) in July of this year for an annual rise of 4.1% and the highest of its kind since July of 2006, according to the statistics released by Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).
Of which, the "store-less" retailing, including mail order, broadcasting & TV purchase, and direct sales, posted the highest growth of 17.93%. Drug, cosmetics and cleaning items followed with corresponding percentage of 12.01%. In the first seven months of the year, Taiwan's retailing sales accumulated to NT$1.8798 trillion (US$56.96 billion), up 2.25% from that recorded in the same period of last year and, of which, the "store-less" retailing shot up by 9.75%.
In July alone, Taiwan's wholesales, retailing, and restaurants scored combined revenues of NT$1.0218 trillion (US$30.96 billion), increased by 8.36% from that in the same month of a year earlier; of which, wholesales grew by 10.32%, restaurants by 5.13% and retailing 4.1%. However, in the same month hypermarkets, influenced by commodity price hike, saw revenues decline by 5.91% to NT$12.7 billion (US$384.85 million).
Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIEER), one of Taiwan's major think tanks, recently announced that Taiwan's business monitoring index for the manufacturing sector rose by 2.29 points from a month earlier to 121.5 points in August, the highest in three years; while the corresponding index for the service sector dropped by 2.99 points to 114.82 points, due to the influence by typhoons and the unstable performance in stock market.
Besides, a survey done by MOEA showed that 30.9% of those in metal & machinery industry showed intention of expanding operations this year, a sharp rise of 5.32 percentage points from the corresponding figure of last year and the highest among the polled industries; followed by information technology (IT) & electronics industry, chemical industry and consumer industry.
The survey also indicated that 43.1% of the polled in manufacturing industry have launched more investments this year than last year and near 60% of the enterprises with employees of more than 200 persons expressing to funnel in more investments this year.
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| | ![]() | | | AmTRAN to Shift Orders for LCD TVs to Innolux
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--To focus on promoting its own brand and developing distribution channels starting next year, AmTRAN Technology Co., Ltd., a Taiwan-based supplier of liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs, will shift orders for LCD TVs to Innolux Display Corp., a Taiwanese maker of display panels, consolidating relationship between the two parties in the future, according to company sources.
It has been reported that Innolux may cooperate with or acquire AmTRAN, but the two parties have yet to take actions. However, a consensus has been reached that AmTRAN will share orders for LCD TVs with Innolux. This makes Innolux more confident of realizing a shipment goal of 2 million LCD TVs for next year.
Scottie Chiu, spokesman of AmTRAN, said that Innolux is to start supplying 26-inch LCD TVs to AmTRAN this year. But, AmTRAN hasn't decided on how many orders to shift to Innolux.
Becoming the largest brand of flat TVs in the North American market in the second quarter of this year, AmTRAN, the world's second largest supplier of LCD TVs, is expected to post annual shipment of 2.6 million LCD TVs and sales revenue of NT$65 billion for the year. With its shipment to sharply increase to 4-4.5 million LCD TVs next year, AmTRAN has been eager to seek contract suppliers.
Chui said that AmTRAN hopes it and Innolux can respectively vie for supply of display panels as much as possible. As AmTRAN projects its revenue and shipment goals to reach NT$80-100 billion and 4 million LCD TVs, respectively, for next year, working with Innolux will help AmTRAM to overcome a deficiency of production capacity very much.
At the mean time, Innolux has actively planned to build its 6-genertaion plant, which is to specialize in manufacturing display panels for 32- and 37-inch LCD TVs. In fact, Innolux wants to have the new plant especially supply to AmTRAM and additional Japanese clients working with its parent company Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.
AmTRAN posted sales revenue of NT$6.046 billion in August, already beating a historical high for six consecutive months this year. With its shipment keeping sharply growing, the company is expected to see its revenue to further move up in September. Besides, the company already landed orders for flat TVs from LG Taiwan. This will also benefit AmTRAN in sales revenue and shipment.
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| | ![]() | | | Unimicron to Integrate Supply Chain via Acquisitions
Taipei, Oct. 4, 2007 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based Unimicron Technology Corp, a world-level supplier of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and integrated circuits (ICs), plans to integrate its supply chain by acquiring other companies in the sector, according to T.C. Tseng, chairman of the company.
Affiliated with United Microelectronics Corp, Unimicron has been the largest supplier of PCBs in Taiwan, and ranked No.2 by sales revenue among the world's top five PCB suppliers last year, only trailing Japan's Ibiden. Tseng thought the company's sales revenue could keep increasing sharply due to promising prospects of the PCB making industry this year and next.
Unimicron saw its combined revenue break the NT$4 billion mark in August for the first time and posted aggregate revenue of NT$29.24 billion over the past eight months of the year, growing 23.79% from a year earlier. Tseng said that with resilient demand for PCBs triggered by PCs, mobile phones and game consoles in the second half of this year, many makers in the sector already run at full capacity and Unimicron is very likely to post banner sales in the fourth quarter of this year as a result.
Among Taiwan's large-sized PCB suppliers who have suffered from lackluster handset shipment by Motorola this year, Unimicron was the first one reversing the plight in the second quarter. Besides, with significant growth in shipment of PCBs for handset, the company is expected to become the largest supplier of this kind in Taiwan this year, according to Tseng.
Meanwhile, with demand for the products turning strong in the second half of the year, Unimicron is expanding production capacity of flip-chip substrates, and will attain monthly capacity of 6 million units by the end of this year. Tseng noted that supply slightly lags behind demand in the market for chip scale packages, flip-chip substrates and plastic ball grid array (PBGA) substrates at the moment, and Unimicron will boost production capacity of flip-chip substrates to between 9 million units and 12 million units next year depending on market conditions at the time.
Unimicron has greatly broadened its business operations over past several years, boosting its gross profits by improving company management, controlling orders and switching production focus onto different products, instead of merely pursuing high sales revenue. Tseng said that such efforts are expected to pay off by the end of next year, raising the company's gross profit rate to 23-25% in 2008 from this year's 20-21%.
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| | ![]() | | | Motorcycle Taiwan 2008 to Pack More Power With Tri-show Format
By QUINCY LIANG
The third Taiwan International Motorcycle Show (Motorcycle Taiwan 2008), the largest international event of its type on the island, is scheduled to be held from April 9 to 12 2008 with an even bigger show than the successful 2007 event.
According to show organizer Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), Motorcycle Taiwan 2007 drew 166 exhibitors who used about 370 booths to display their products, and about 15,000 visitors. The 2008 event is expected to attract about 200 local and foreign exhibitors at the expanded location, the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) Exhibition Hall 1, and feature around 500 booths displaying new, high-quality, and innovative products.
The Motorcycle Taiwan 2008 will be simultaneously held with two other major exhibitions, the Taipei Int'l Auto Parts & Accessories Show (Taipei AMPA 2008) and AutoTronics Taipei International Automobile Electronics Show (AutoTronics Taipei 2008), making the tri-show event one of the world's most important and comprehensive trade shows related to vehicular products.
The volume of applications from exhibitors has been brisk, TAITRA says, with over 120 exhibitors already having booked over 250 booths by early September, whose names can be found at http://www.MotorcycleTaiwan.com.tw.
"No matter how you look at it, the first event was a big success," says Mario Tsai, manager of the Exhibition Section 1 under TAITRA's Exhibition Department. "The exhibitor turnout was strong and around 1,000 key global buyers attended, mainly from Japan, the U.S., Thailand, mainland China, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Italy and South Korea. We anticipate an even bigger and more globalized show in 2008 with a more comprehensive range of products and more buyers."
Major exhibition themes at Motorcycle Taiwan 2007 included complete vehicles (motorcycles, scooters, ATVs, electric scooters, and electric bicycles), engine and parts, vehicle frames, accessories, riding accessories, vehicle testing and inspection equipment, and noise and emissions testing equipment.
Big Names
An impressive list of buyers from several leading companies visited the 2007 show and are expected to return in 2008 as well. Among them are BMW Motorrad, Magura Gustav Magenwirth, Paaschburg & Wunderrilich GmbH of Germany; Polaris Industries Inc., Schwinn Motor Scooters, Unison Motorsports etc. of the U.S.; Piaggio & C, Lampa Spa etc. Italy; Yamaha, Honda, Red Baron of Japan; Bajaj and Speedomax of India; Derbi of Spain; Motorvan of Canada; and many others.
According to TAITRA, the main draw of Motorcycle Taiwan is its position as a world-class trade fair for all the top names in Taiwan's motorcycle industry. The show also helped to confirm Taiwan's reputation as a supplier of top quality and competitively priced motorcycle products.
Forums
At last year's event, a number of key industry figures were invited to speak at the show seminars on various topics, including Gerald Kiska, CEO of Kiska Design, talked about motorcycle design; Tony Wixo, director of Asia Pacific Sourcing, Polaris Industries Representative Office Shanghai, introduced ways to become suppliers to major ATV makers in the U.S.; Jacques Compagne, secretary general of the Association of the European Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM), talked on the motorcycle market in Europe; and George Lin, president of Taiwan Golden Bee Co. Ltd., discussed the global opportunities for Taiwan's motorcycle industry..
Due to the strong turnout, TAITRA says it will expand the seminar program for the 2008 show.
TAITRA says that Motorcycle Taiwan has four major aims, including showcasing the capability of Taiwan-made motorcycle products, motorcycle designs and innovations, ATV trends, and tuning and performance enhancing parts.
Positive Signs
Tsai sees many positive signs in the local motorcycle industry, indicating that Taiwan is becoming a vital development and manufacturing base for high-level PTWs and ATVs.
"Taiwan's declining domestic PTW sales volume (currently about 700,000 units per year, dropping from the previous peak of about one million) has driven local complete-vehicle and parts makers to more aggressively develop international sales," he explains. "The export volume of Taiwan-made PTWs and ATVs outstripped domestic sales for the first time in 2004. In addition, high gas prices are making motorcycles more attractive than cars for many buyers."
More importantly, Tsai says, many major complete-vehicle and engine makers in Taiwan have been actively developing large-displacement engines (up to 1,000cc). These engines are used in utility vehicles (UTVs), powerful ATVs, and golf carts, as well as in traditional scooters and motorcycles. At the same time, the motorcycle industry is developing products not only for transportation, but also for utility, agricultural, and recreational uses.
According to Tsai, another positive trend for Taiwan makers of PTWs, ATVs, and related products is that the expanding global motorcycle market is expected to generate an annual demand for about 40.9 million units by 2009, up sharply from about 32.9 million in 2003.
More and more Taiwanese motorcycle brands, such as KYMCO (Kwang Yang Motor Co., Ltd.), SYM (Sanyang Industry Co., Ltd.), TGB (Taiwan Golden Bee), and Adly (Her Chee Industrial Co., Ltd.), are building their international presence. Their global emergence has also fueled sales of aftermarket (AM) replacement parts, performance-tuning parts, and accessories.
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