PC brand Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday said it would likely raise prices for laptop computers in the second half of the year if a squeeze on component supplies from Japanese manufacturers continues.
Current inventories of -Japanese-made components could last until the end of next month, Acer president for Taiwan operations Scott Lin (林顯郎) told reporters on the sidelines of a product launch.
Acer possesses a month’s supply of notebooks and retailers such as Tsann Kuen Enterprise Co (燦坤實業) have another month’s supply. Contract manufacturers such as Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) have two to three more weeks of stock, which means Acer’s inventory would last until about the end of next month, he said.
Photo: Chen Ping-hung, Taipei Times
With stocks expected to run low in June, a price rise is possible because of a shortage in components from Japanese manufacturers, which are still reeling from the effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Even though some Japanese facilities have resumed production to a certain extent, they might not be able to fully cope with demand, Lin said.
In anticipation of a possible price adjustment, consumers at a computer fair in Kaohsiung snapped up the latest Acer notebooks from last Thursday to Monday, causing a three-fold rise in the company’s sales, he said. Another company fair commences in Taipei today at the Taipei World Trade Center’s Hall 1 and ends on Monday.
Acer is also upbeat on sales of its first tablet device — Iconia Tab — launched last week in Taiwan. The company has sold 1,000 tablets so far and a telecoms operator has placed an order for 4,000 units, Lin said.
“The tablet war has begun. It isn’t Acer’s and Asustek Computer’s (華碩) battle against Apple. It’s the Google-led camp confronting Apple,” Lin said.
He acknowledged Apple’s dominance in the tablet market, but said other makers stood a chance of seizing market share by using Google Inc’s Android platform.
“The more you limit the users, the more problems will arise,” the Acer president said.
The so-called open platform means that Acer tablets offer USB ports for users to share files, as well as Flash support for Web page views — features missing from Apple’s iPad, Lin 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.
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
RSS