Sales of personal computers in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan fell 5 percent in the first quarter from the previous year as the global economic slump hurt demand, a report said yesterday.
However, strong sales of portable PCs in markets like China, Hong Kong and Taiwan limited the overall decline and kept total shipments close to forecasts during the quarter, industry research firm IDC said.
“Even though the quarter was soft, it was somewhat relieving to see that the region’s market was able to hold up to forecasts ... especially compared to a dismal fourth quarter,” IDC analyst Bryan Ma said.
But he said the market was not out of the woods yet.
“The economy is still showing mixed signals and recent political instability in markets like Thailand created further uncertainty,” he said, referring to recent anti-government riots in Bangkok.
“Commercial buying is thus still likely to remain questionable this year, but hopefully consumer portables can help offset that,” Ma said.
Although overall computer shipments were down, sales for portable PCs rose 12 percent from the previous year, the report said.
Chinese computer giant Lenovo (聯想) remained the maket leader with a 16.9 percent market share, followed by US rivals Hewlett-Packard and Dell, with Taiwan’s Acer (宏碁) in fourth place, IDC said.
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.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
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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