Acer forsees 3% sales bump
Acer Inc (宏碁) expects its shipments and sales to climb about 3 percent this quarter from the prior three-month period, spokesman Henry Wang (汪島雄) said by telephone, citing comments made earlier yesterday by Jim Wong (翁建仁), head of the company’s information--technology products division.
The company expects to post stronger growth in the second quarter as it begins selling tablet devices, he said.
“Intel’s Sandy Bridge chipset design issue will have a limited effect on first-quarter performance,” Wang said.
Taipei-based Acer expects notebook shipments to climb 10 percent to 15 percent this year from last year, he said.
Seperately, Acer said it is recalling five models affected by the flawed Sandy Bridge chipset in Taiwan.
Buyers should approach their points of sales to get a full refund, or wait for the new chipset exchange.
Steel prices to rise: China Steel
Steel prices will probably rise because of increasing costs, Chung Le-min (鍾樂民), executive vice president of China Steel Corp (中鋼) said yesterday by telephone from Kaohsiung.
The company, the nation’s biggest maker of the metal, will set April and May prices late this month, he said, declining to give an estimate.
National debt soars
The nation’s outstanding debt increased by about NT$105 billion (US$3.6 billion), or 2.3 percent, last month from the end of last year, as the government continued to run budget shortfalls, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Outstanding debt with a maturity of more than one year rose to NT$4.579 trillion as of Jan. 31, up from NT$4.474 trillion at the end of December, the ministry announced on its Web site and with an update on its electronic national debt clock.
If outstanding short-term debt (under one-year) of NT$240 billion is added, the central government’s overall debt stood at NT$4.82 trillion as of the end last month, bringing per capita debt to NT$208,000.
CHT aims for 7% revenue rise
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信), the nation’s biggest telecoms operator, yesterday said it aimed to boost revenues by more than 7 percent to NT$200 billion this year, higher than its forecast of NT$190 billion.
Last year, CHT posted revenues of NT$186.41 billion.
Chairman Lu Shyue-ching (呂學錦) said the company also targeted to make NT$100 billion from mobile business.
The company also hoped to increase Internet TV users to 1 million from about 800,000 early this year.
NT dollar continues rise
The New Taiwan dollar rose to a 13-year high as foreign funds pumped money into local stocks to profit from the improving outlook for economic growth.
The currency strengthened beyond NT$29 per US dollar for the first time since 1997 before surrendering the bulk of its gains in the final minutes of trading as the central bank intervened to curb appreciation to support exporters, according to two traders familiar with its operations.
Overseas investors bought US$64 million more Taiwanese stocks than they sold yesterday after purchasing a net US$3.4 billion this year through Jan. 28, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Taiwan’s dollar advanced 0.1 percent to NT$29.16 against its US counterpart, according to Taipei Forex Inc. The currency earlier reached NT$28.89, the strongest level since October 1997.
It has rallied 4.1 percent this year as the benchmark TAIEX advanced 1.5 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last