The price for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels used in computers and televisions may decline in the second half of this month because of excessive inventories, but the fall may slow as some panel manufacturers start cutting production, market researcher DisplaySearch said yesterday.
The price for a mainstream 19-inch LCD panel for a computer monitor is expected to drop by another US$8, or around 7 percent, to US$107 per unit in the second half of this month from two weeks ago, a bi-monthly report released by the Austin, Texas-based researcher said.
“”Panel price pressure remains very heavy. Brands and system integrators are emphasizing inventory adjustments rather than boosting sales in the third quarter as planned,” DisplaySearch said in the report.
Overall however, panel selling prices will still remain above the cost of making them, the researcher said.
“We expect the downtrend to extend into August, but the decline may be less severe as some panel makers have cut production or are seriously considering reducing output [to cope with drastic changes in the market],” said David Hsieh (謝勤益), a vice president of DisplaySearch who is based in Taipei.
TV panel prices have dropped at a slower pace, the DisplaySearch report said. The price of a 32-inch TV panel is expected to fall approximately 7.4 percent month-on-month to US$285 per unit this month, DisplaySearch said.
TV vendors tend to have a more conservative attitude on inventories, as they have remained an issue in Europe and China, DisplaySearch said.
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley has cut its target price by 20 percent for the nation’s two largest LCD panel suppliers, AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), to NT$65 and NT$48 for the next 12 months respectively, a report issued on Tuesday said.
Morgan Stanley said its price adjustment was in accordance with a bearish outlook on the industry. But the US brokerage kept its “overweight” rating on the stocks unchanged, citing an attractive valuation, as the stocks price to book value ratios have hit a five-year low.
"We expect the downturn to continue through the second quarter of 2009," executive director of Morgan Stanley's Taipei branch Frank Wang (王安亞) said in the report.
Shares of AU Optronics plunged 6.45 percent to NT$38.45 yesterday, under-performing the TAIEX, which dropped 2.28 percent. Chi Mei Optoelectronics closed down almost at the 7 percent daily limit at NT$26.5.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day