The nation's iPod fans now have an easier way to bring home an iPod Shuffle, as Apple's Taiwan branch has teamed up with the 7-Eleven convenience store giant to market the red-hot gadget, which was officially launched yesterday.
"We had hundreds of inquiry calls yesterday alone, as soon as we started selling the product in our outlets," said Vivian Hsu (
The retailer expects the first batch of 500 units of the iPod Shuffle, the new model of Apple Computer Inc's best-selling iPod music player family, allocated for sale in 250 outlets in the nation's metropolitan areas to be sold out in two or three days, she said.
This is the second promotional partnership between the information technology and retail giants after the two parties received enthusiastic feedback from consumers during a promotion of the iPod Mini last August.
The retailer said it would seek to continue the sale but were uncertain about the quantity available for the next wave, given a shortage of supplies of the popular consumer electronics gadget after it hit the market.
The pint-size, flash memory-based digital music players, which can hold 120 songs or 240 songs, depending on a storage capability of 512 megabytes or 1 gigabyte, are priced at NT$3,600 and NT$5,400, respectively.
In a bid to downplay the shortage, Apple said it had seen stronger demand than supply globally after the rollout last month and it's difficult to predict when the tight supply will stabilize, according to an official at an Apple Taiwan branch who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sales of Apple's sleekly designed iPod music player had boomed to over 10 million units at year-end, since its launch in 2001. Its great popularity has in turn benefited the company's Taiwanese assemblers and component suppliers, including Inventec Appliances Corp (英華達) and Asustek Computers Inc (華碩電腦), that make iPod and iPod Shuffle, respectively.
"The shipment of iPod Shuffles is estimated to contribute to 5 percent of Asustek's revenue for last month [of around NT$26.2 billion]," said Jenny Lai (
Asustek is expected to ship 5 million units with a minimum margin of 5 percent, which may make up 4 percent of the company's annual sales this year, Lai said.
In light of sales of the product heating up, the shipment estimates may need upward adjustments, she said.
Another market watcher suggested that investors can set their sights on Apple's upstream component suppliers, who enjoy much better margins than the downstream assemblers.
For instance, Acon Advanced-Connectek Inc (連展科技), which supplies portable batteries for iPod music players could enjoy margins as high as 60 percent, said Stevie Chou (周奇賢), vice president of the research division of SinoPac Securities Corp (建華證券).
Apple reportedly may increase its purchases from Taiwan suppliers this year by a quarter to $5 billion as it boosts sales, according to a Chinese-language newspaper report.
Acon shares closed up 3.05 percent at NT$16.9 while Asustek closed marginally down 0.56 percent at NT$88.5 on the TAIEX yesterday.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS