Apple Inc will receive newly developed 10-inch touch screens from Taiwan during the third quarter, Reuters reported yesterday, citing an unidentified person close to Taichung-based display maker Wintek Corp (勝華科技).
Apple does not comment on market rumors or speculation, Jill Tan, a spokeswoman for the maker of the iMac computers in Hong Kong, said by telephone yesterday. Jay Huang, a spokesman at Wintek, did not return calls seeking comment.
The article mirrors reports from Dow Jones Newswires and the Chinese-language Commercial Times, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, that Apple may introduce a touch-screen netbook in the second half.
Apple does not offer netbooks, a booming category of laptops that perform basic functions and typically sell for less than US$500 each.
The company is working on the laptops with Taiwan’s Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) and Wintek, Dow Jones reported yesterday, citing two people close to the situation. Carol Hsu, a spokeswoman at Taoyuan-based Quanta, and Huang at Wintek declined to comment on the report yesterday.
Sales of netbooks will almost double this year, even as the total PC market shrinks 12 percent, research firm Gartner Inc said this month. The machines shot to popularity last year with sales of 11.7 million units, and shipments will hit 21 million this year, Gartner said.
Analysts including Brian Marshall at Broadpoint AmTech in San Francisco have said Apple may introduce a netbook.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has sought to quash that rumor, saying in October that Apple did not know how to make a US$500 computer that was not junk.
Quanta is the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of notebook computers. Wintek is the world’s second-largest maker of flat panels for mobile phones.
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.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
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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