Industrial News

MANILA  -The Ayala Group’s Integrated Micro-Electronics (IMI) booked a P4.7-billion ($84 million) loss from the sale of British subsidiary STI Enterprises Ltd. six years after it was acquired, underscoring persistent supply chain woes plaguing the sector. The electronics manufacturing arm of conglomerate Ayala Corp. said on Friday it agreed to sell 80 percent of STI, alongside minority stockholders owning the remaining 20 percent, to Rcapital, a private investment firm based in London. IMI said the $84 million writedown includes a non-cash goodwill charge of $55 million, cutting the company’s equity by 22 percent. IMI said this will affect its debt [...]

Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported a more than 95 percent plunge in operating profits in the second quarter owing to weak demand for memory chips. The firm is the flagship subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung Group, by far the largest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate business in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Operating profit from the April to June period was 668.5 billion won ($525.3 million), down from 14.1 trillion won from a year earlier, Samsung said in a statement. This marks the firm’s worst quarterly profit since the first quarter of 2009. Samsung’s second-quarter net profit fell 84.5 percent [...]

The Philippines’ exports and imports would take a hit from muted global demand coupled with penny-pinching domestic consumers amid high prices, said Moody’s Analytics. “Trade will be weak over coming months as foreign households pull back spending,” Moody’s Analytics said in a July 14 report released on Monday. This was despite a surprise 1.9 percent exports growth in May which ended five straight months of year-on-year drops, the think tank said, citing the government’s latest external trade data. Also, “high borrowing costs and elevated inflation will pinch local households, hurting imports,” Moody’s Analytics added. Filipinos are mostly dependent on imported [...]

New research from Omdia reveals that the semiconductor market declined in revenue for a fifth straight quarter in the first quarter of 2023. Source: Omdia This is the longest recorded period of decline since Omdia began tracking the market in 2002. Revenue in Q1 2023 settled at US$120.5B, down 9% from Q4 2022. The semiconductor market is cyclical, and this prolonged decline follows the upsurge as the market grew to record revenues in each quarter between Q4 2020 through Q4 2021 following increased demand from the global pandemic. The memory and micro processor chips (MPU) market are major areas of the [...]

Food conglomerate Monde Nissin Corp. started work on a P1.2-billion production plant in Davao, Mindanao that will expand its bakery and biscuit business. Monde said the new factory, which opens in February 2024, will add capacity to its existing manufacturing facility that has been supplying the region with its flagship Lucky Me! instant noodles. It will include a bakery and biscuits facility to produce brands like Butter Coconut and Monde Mamon. The company said the project, described as having “highly automated” operations, will create an additional 500 jobs. “This expansion not only enhances our manufacturing capacity but also strengthens our [...]

MANILA, June 15 (Reuters) - China's Yadea Group Holdings (1585.HK), one of the world's biggest electric two-wheeled vehicle makers, plans to invest about $1 billion in an e-motorcycle factory in the Philippines, the country's investment promotions agency chief said on Thursday. Yadea is one of a several electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers looking at the Southeast Asian nation for expansion of their manufacturing sites, Tereso Panga, director-general of government-run Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), told reporters. Yadea, which has six production hubs in China and one in Vietnam with an annual capacity of more than 12 million vehicles, did not immediately respond [...]

Total Foreign Investments (FI) approved in the first quarter of 2023 amounted to PhP 172.70 billion from PhP 8.98 billion in the same quarter of 2022. These investments were pledges from the following Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs), namely: Board of Investments (BOI), Clark Development Corporation (CDC), Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). No foreign investment approvals for the quarter were reported by Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB), BOI-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BOI-BARMM), Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), Poro Point Management Corporation (PPMC), Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), and Clark International Airport Corporation [...]

MANILA – American multinational semiconductor company Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) on Tuesday (US time) announced its plan to invest USD200 million (PHP11 billion) in a new research and development (R&D) facility as part of its expansion efforts in the Philippines. ADI made the announcement during a meeting with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. at the Blair House in Washington DC. The R&D facility shall be an addition to the firm's LEED certified production facility at the Gateway Business Park in Cavite. Marcos expressed gratitude to the company for its continued trust and investments in the country, as he affirmed the government's [...]

THE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) said it is hoping to attract foreign direct investments (FDI) in areas of advanced manufacturing and electric vehicles, among others, as it pins its hopes on the United States to make the country an alternative location for US firms wishing to offshore their manufacturing activities. “The Philippines could be a viable site for US-based companies from North America or those American offshore companies shifting out production from their existing locations to take advantage of the country’s growing domestic market, huge pool of world-class and work quality-oriented workers, and as a production and distribution hub in [...]

WASHINGTON—The Ayala Group's Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. and Zero Motorcycles based in California have signed a memorandum of agreement for the setting up of the first electronic vehicle (EV) motorcycle manufacturing site in the Philippines, the Presidential Communications Office has said. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who's on an official visit to Washington, witnessed the signing of the MOA. Among those who attended the meeting for the IMI include Ayala Corporation chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel De Ayala and Automotive and Industrial regional manager Dave Corry. Zero Motorcycles, on the other hand, were represented by its chief executive officer Sam Paschel and  Alex [...]