Taiwanese manufacturers of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels could report a fifth straight quarterly decline in revenues this quarter as the economic downturn curtails sales of electronic products, but they might see encouraging signs after the free-fall in prices stops, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) said yesterday.
The local market researcher said domestic LCD panel makers’ revenues from PC and TV panel sales likely plunged nearly 60 percent to NT$113.34 billion (US$3.5 billion) in the second quarter from NT$281.59 billion in the same quarter last year, as demand from US and European markets remained sluggish.
“Demand from China helped generate some orders, but it will take more time to see whether it will be strong enough to lead to a recovery,” ITRI analyst Nancy Liu (劉美君) said yesterday.
Liu said she held a positive view about Beijing’s economic stimulus measures subsidizing purchases of TVs and other home appliances in rural China and now in some big cities, but it remained to be seen how Taiwanese companies would benefit from the Chinese demand.
“End demand looks just okay in the traditionally slack second quarter ... but at least we are seeing prices stabilize from April after LCD panel makers adjusted output [downward over the past quarters], which may help panel suppliers stem their bleeding from the downturn,” she said.
The nation’s two largest flat-panel makers, AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), have accumulated losses of NT$45.96 billion and NT$54.89 billion respectively during the past three quarters since global economic turmoil started taking a toll on electronics consumption in the third quarter of last year.
ITRI said it had recently begun seeing more positive signs. Prices for 20-inch PC monitor panels rose around US$1 or US$2 per unit last month from March, the researcher said.
In the first quarter, local panel makers reported a 59.4 percent year-on-year decline in PC and TV panel revenues to NT$119.3 billion, ITRI’s tallies show.
For the whole of this year, local panel makers could still see accelerating declines in their revenues from PC and TV screens as a result of recessionary pressure, ITRI said. It forecast revenues from PC and TV panels may fall by 16 percent annually to NT$798.45 billion from last year’s NT$950.53 billion.
Shares of AU Optronics and Chi Mei Optoelectronics yesterday fell 3.71 percent and 3.12 percent to NT$33.7 and NT$18.65 respectively, under-performing the benchmark TAIEX, which slid 0.04 percent.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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