Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC brand, yesterday said it expected revenues to drop 5 to 10 percent in the fourth quarter from the third quarter, in wake of flooding in Thailand, which has impacted production of hard disk drives.
The company joined its bigger domestic rival, Acer Inc (宏碁), which last week also predicted a revenue drop within a similar range for the fourth quarter, given the severe floods that have wreaked havoc in Thailand — which produces nearly half of the world’s hard drives.
“If we take out the flooding factor, fourth-quarter revenue may remain flat from the third,” Asustek chief executive Jerry Shen (沈振來) told investors.
To maintain profitability, the company will join Acer in raising average sales prices and downgrade hardware of selected notebooks starting in the fourth quarter to reflect the price hike of hard drives, he said.
The company expected an average of a 3 to 6 percent price increase for notebooks industry-wise because of the hard drive shortage.
Asustek posted revenues of NT$102.04 billion (US$3.4 billion) in the third quarter, up 24 percent year-on-year and a 42 percent quarter-on-quarter jump.
The figure was a record after the company split its manufacturing arm from its brand-name business in July last year. The rise was attributed to strong growth in shipments in Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific, especially China, it said.
Earnings were NT$4.68 billion, or NT$6.22 per share, up 11 percent from last year and a rise of 30 percent from the second quarter.
The company aims to ship 4.1 million notebooks, 1.2 million netbooks, 600,000 tablets and 6 million motherboards in the fourth quarter.
It shipped 4.3 million notebooks, 1.3 million netbooks, 800,000 tablets and 6.3 million motherboards for the third quarter.
The company expects emerging markets, which currently contributes 62 percent to total sales compared with 38 percent for mature markets, to drive growth next year.
The emerging markets include China, Brazil and India.
New products that will drive growth include the Padfone — a smartphone-tablet combo — to be unveiled in February next year and a second model of its popular tablet, the Transformer, this month.
Despite Asustek’s efforts to boost its PC presence, Cheng Kai-ming (鄭開明), an analyst with Horizon Securities (宏遠證券), does not expect Asustek to see any changes in its PC ranking next year.
“The competition is tough as the top four vendors are very strong. Unless Acer continues to lose market share, Asustek’s ranking next year will be little changed even if one or two models of its products manage to stand out,” Cheng said.
Shares of Asustek yesterday closed down 3 percent to NT$210.5 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange before the investors’ conference.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
RSS