Japanese automaker Mazda recently announced the kick-off of operations at its new national sales company in Taiwan, Mazda Motor Taiwan (MMT). MMT will plan and implement branding and sales strategies aimed at boosting sales on the island. The local subsidiary has announced that the assembly of its Mazda 3 compact car on the island would cease by year-end, and that in the future all Mazda 3s wi...

With an eye on the continued depreciation of the Japanese Yen against U.S. greenback, all major Japanese-car vendors in Taiwan plan to introduce more Japanese models to the domestic market to expand their product lines and enhance their profits. Hotai Motor Co., Ltd. (local agent of Toyota and Lexus), Yulon Nissan Motor Co. (Nissan and Infiniti), Honda Taiwan Motor Co., and Mazda Taiwan Motor ...

Thanks to the increasing use of robotic application systems in the flat panel display (FPD) industry, Mirle Automation Corp., a major Taiwanese supplier of automation equipment, recently reported that revenue generated from its sales to the FPD industry has increased by 50% this year, while sales to the automotive and motorcycle industries have risen by more than 20%. A senior Mirle official p...

A fully-owned subsidiary of the German carmaker Volkswagen has been set up recently in Taiwan to handle multi-brand sales on the island. Ryan Searle, president of Audi Taiwan, the core of the new VW Taiwan, says annual sales of new Audis on the island are expected to reach 6,000 units by 2015 and 10,000 within the next three years. VW Taiwan is capitalized at NT$800 million (US$26.7 million) ...

To further ramp up smartphone shipments in Q4 and grab business opportunities during the Diwali Festival sales peak in India, Asustek Computer Inc. (ASUS brand), a major personal computer (PC) and smartphone vendor in Taiwan, recently said it has ready some 100,000 newly released ZenFone smartphones for India. But such volume is forecast to still lag the strong demand in the booming marke...

Sales of Mercedes-Benz imports in Taiwan during January-September has surpassed that of the entire-year volume in 2013, and the local subsidiary of the German brand, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan, said it aims to sell some 18,000 units in 2014 and challenge a new record of 20,000 in 2015. If Mercedes-Benz Taiwan achieves the target, the brand will be the first import nameplate to be in the top-five in ...

Global shipments of notebook PCs are forecast to increase 3% to reach about 185 million units in 2015, with increased deliveries of about 10 million 11.6- to 12.5-inch models, and 9% increase in business model, according to Topology Research Institute (TRi), a private market researcher in Taiwan. Regarding the 2014 notebook PC market, TRi said that, after Microsoft stopped updating the Windows...

Driven by Samsung Electronics' expanding procurements of LCD TV panels, the two major Taiwanese thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel makers, Innolux Display Corp. and AU Optronics (AUO), are likely to see peak shipments in Q4 and challenge record highs. South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a major TV maker, announced recently that it will invest US$560 million to...

Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), an industrial technology R&D body in Taiwan, recently signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Taiwan Mitsui Chemicals, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsui Chemicals Inc. of Japan, allowing it to manufacture and distribute ITRI’s STOBA (Self Terminated Oligomers with hyper-Branched Architecture) technology, the world’s only technology to ...

Panion & BF Biotech Inc. (PBF), a pharmaceutical company based in Taiwan, recently announced that its new drug Nephoxil (Zerenex in the United States) for treating kidney disease has won marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Nephoxil is an oral ferric iron-based phosphate binder for treating anemic patients with non-dialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease (...