Chia Hsin Cement Corp (CHC, 嘉新水泥) expects its hospitality business to grow steadily next year, as it has been shifting its focus from making cement to developing and managing hotels in the past two years.
The company’s new hotel in Okinawa is to begin trial operations in January, while it plans to open its second postpartum care center in Taipei City’s Songshan District (松山) next quarter, CHC chief executive officer Elizabeth Wang (王立心) told an investors’ meeting in Taipei on Thursday.
The firm aims to raise hospitality business sales from 3 percent of total sales in the first half of the year to about 50 percent in 2023, she said.
In the first half, cement contributed 52 percent of total sales, while logistics and warehouse services made up 30 percent, with real estate accounting for 15 percent, company data showed.
With the cement business likely to remain stable this year, overall sales this year are expected be flat from last year, Wang said.
Chia Hsin has stopped making cement, and instead purchases and sells cement from Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥), she said.
As the number of tourists to Okinawa is growing stably and hotel occupancy rates remain at about 80 percent, Chia Hsin’s Hotel Collective, which has 260 rooms, is expected to contribute to sales next year and break even in six years, she said.
The firm said it plans to jointly develop a resort with 373 rooms in Okinawa’s Tomigusuku with InterContinental Hotels Group PLC.
It is expected to be completed in 2023.
In the first half of the year, net income surged 82.49 percent year-on-year to NT$728.35 million (US$23.51 million), while earnings per share (EPS) increased from NT$0.62 to NT$1.13, mainly thanks to disposal gains of 130.75 million yuan (US$18.44 million) from Jiangsu Union Cement (江蘇聯合水泥) in the second quarter, the company said.
Excluding asset disposal gains, EPS would be NT$0.19, it said.
First-half revenue declined 11.04 percent year-on-year to NT$890.41 million, as the company’s cargo services at the Port of Taipei shrank.
The company is expected to receive dividend income of NT$959 million from investing in Taiwan Cement this quarter, and would receive disposal gains of 70 million yuan from its subsidiary Shanghai Jiahuan Concrete Co Ltd (上海嘉環) late this year at the earliest, it said.
Shares in Chia Hsin rose 3.41 percent to NT$18.2 on Friday in Taipei trading. They have advanced 33.82 percent so far this year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”