As she awaits the birth of her baby, Paula Lee (
"I hope to buy my first digital camera with my year-end bonus, so that I can e-mail my baby's photos to my families and friends right away," said Lee, who was scheduled to give birth in early April.
Lee represents a growing number of consumers who are interested in few consumer electronics aside from digital cameras.
"A digital camera tops my Lunar New Year shopping list, although I already have one," said a 23-year-old editor at Sharp Point Publishing Co (
"The one I use now is too bulky to carry. I want a slimmer one, like Sony Corp's T1, which is similar to a business card in size," said Young.
Local electronics stores, which already saw booming demand for digital cameras this year, said demand will continue to grow though the Lunar New Year holidays.
"Digital cameras are one of the fastest-selling digital consumer electronics products this year. And demand is heating up as Lunar New Year draws near," said Eileen Shou (
Sales of digital cameras more than tripled from last year, to exceed 10,000 units a month at Tsann Kuen's 130 outlets, Shou said. Last year, only 2,000 to 3,000 units were sold a month, she added.
Tsann Kuen's rival E-Life Mall Co (
"It won't be a surprise for us to see triple or quadruple growth [in digital camera sales] this year," said Hsieh Wei-hsiung (
Lunar New Year, which begins on Jan. 21 this year, has traditionally been a peak season for consumer electronics and home appliance sales, as people's pockets are full of `red envelope,' retailers said they are sure to see more sales in digital cameras this time.
Lee said she planned to buy a Pentax digital camera for a price between NT$13,000 and NT$15,000.
"Compared with Sony's fancy designs, Pentax attracts me bcause of its user-friendly designs," she said.
But Pentax is not on E-Life's top-10 list of most popular digital cameras. Sony's P8 and P10 are the hottest items at E-Life's 221 outlets, followed by models launched by Japanese Fujitsu Ltd, Nikon Corp and South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, Hsieh said.
Local brands such as Premier Image Technology Corp (
With an estimated increase in sales in flat-screen TVs and washing machines, Hsieh said E-Life expects a 50-percent increase in January sales on top of the average monthly sales of NT$800 million.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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