Merrill Lynch & Co, ranked second in global semiconductor research, recommended Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (
Intel is Merrill's favorite US computer chip stock amid rising demand for notebook computers, Joseph Osha, head of US chip research, said during a presentation to reporters in Seoul yesterday.
Icheon, South Korea-based Hynix is Merrill's most preferred memory chip stock and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) is the top pick for custom-made semiconductors, analysts Simon Woo and Daniel Heyler said.
Merrill's semiconductor research team, second behind Credit Suisse First Boston by Institutional Investor magazine last year, recommends investors focus on specific companies that are outperforming the US$227 billion industry. Shares of the world's top 20 chipmakers have gained 24 percent this year, outpacing the 6.9 percent gain by Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc's World Index during the period.
"We've been pretty much stock-picking in this environment," said Heyler, head of Pacific Rim chip research. "You're not going to hear Merrill Lynch go out and say this is a big cycle turn up or down, we do think it's a gradual recovery."
Hoya is Merrill's top chip-related stock pick in Japan because of demand for components used in hard-disk drives, Hiroshi Yoshihara, head of Japanese Semiconductor Research, said.
STMicroelectronics NV is the broker's top European chip stock recommendation, Andrew Griffin, global coordinator for semiconductor research out of London, said.
California-based Novellus Systems Inc is Merrill's top recommendation among semiconductor-equipment stocks, said Thomas Diffely, who covers the industry out of San Francisco.
Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, will benefit from rising demand for its Centrino processors used in notebook computers and will probably fend off rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc's attempts to win share in the market segment, said Osha, ranked the No. 2 US chip analyst by Institutional Investor this year.
Prices of processors used to run desktop computers will probably fall as demand stalls, and AMD will probably grab market share for processors used in servers, he said.
Still, competition between Intel and AMD will intensify next year when the companies are scheduling three new 12-inch microprocessor factories to go online, which may lead to overcapacity, Osha said.
"I can't remember the last time that's happened," Osha said. "It's kind of like two freight trains running into each other."
Suwon, Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co, the second-largest chipmaker, will probably continue to narrow the gap with Intel because of rising demand for its NAND flash memory chips that store songs and data in consumer electronics such as Apple's iPod Nanos and Sony Corp's PlayStation Portable game consoles, said Woo, who heads memory chip research. Woo last month raised his projections for global NAND flash sales next year by 25 percent to US$16 billion.
Samsung is the world's biggest NAND maker, followed by Toshiba Corp and Hynix, according to market researcher ISuppli Corp.
"When you look at semiconductors overall, NAND has the fastest growth and stocks with exposure to it will continue to outperform next year," Woo said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the