Citigroup yesterday lowered its forecast for growth of global PC shipments this year to 13 percent from 15 percent on concerns of slowing demand amid global financial turmoil.
The US brokerage also substantially lowered its growth forecast for next year to 5 percent from a range between 10 percent and 12 percent, Richard Gardner, a Citigroup Global Markets analyst, said in a client note yesterday.
“We expect the sharpest slowing in Europe where several US vendors have already implemented price increases to offset the recent strengthening in the [US] dollar,” Gardner wrote.
The Citigroup analyst also cut his earnings forecast for Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM Corp and JAVA in the second half of the year and for next year and 2010 to reflect the impact of the global credit crisis and changes in currency values.
Citigroup’s downward adjustments for major US PC vendors are expected to cast a cloud on the outlook for Taiwan’s leading computer contract makers, such as Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and Wistron Corp (緯創).
Last month, Compal Electronics president Ray Chen (陳瑞聰) said the world’s second-largest contract laptop maker would lower its shipment forecast to between 28 million and 29 million units this year, down from 32 million units.
Quanta Computer, the No. 1 contract laptop maker, also reduced its forecast to 38 million units this year from 40 million, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing chief financial officer Tim Li (李杜榮).
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS