President Securities (
According to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the market share of President Securities in October was 3.36 percent, a 0.47 percentage point increase over its accumulated share between January and August of this year. It jumped in the brokerage rankings in the last two months, rising from No. 8 to No. 4.
Analysts said the jump in President Securities' market share is attributable to the computer program that began on Sept. 1. Any new client who signed up for the program could get a personal computer for free as well as several other gifts, if their monthly trading volume was around NT$1 million a month.
"More than 15,000 new clients signed up for the project," said a company executive.
President's computer giveaway ignited a war among dozens of brokerages, all of which followed with similar programs over the past two months.
The total trading volume of the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Over-the-Counter market (OTC) in October was NT$2.18 trillion, a 4 percent decrease over September. The average daily trading volume in October was NT$90 billion, significantly lower than the average of NT$110 billion the previous month.
The drop in the bourse's average daily volume was reflected by most brokerages -- the only exception being President Securities. Its trading volume in October was NT$150.3 billion, an increase of almost 10 percent over its NT$137 billion in September.
Analysts said President's 15,000 new clients contributed to the NT$13.3 billion increase in the company's trading volume last month, with each new client trading an average of NT$880,000.
President Securities has been targeting small investors whose monthly trading volume is less than NT$1 million.
Analysts say that so far this marketing strategy has been successful. However, they note that since more than a dozen brokerages are now offering their own "free computer" programs, it is hard to tell whether President Securities will be able to maintain its market share.
Other major brokerages have fared less well in the last two months. Larger names like Yuanta (
Analysts say that is why the brokerages have all devoted themselves to establishing their own "free computer" projects.
Another loser last month was Polaris (寶來), which has been the largest player in the internet trading market with more than a quarter of the net-trading market share. It lost 0.08 percentage points in last month's market shares and seen the biggest drop in its market share this year. Analysts said it was also hurt by President's and other brokerages' moves in offering the free computer projects.
However, the overall impact of the computer offers on the market share of the top 20 brokerages has been to reshuffle the top slots among the largest players. Analysts say it will take more time for the computer offer to affect the market positions of hundreds of small brokerages all over the island
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