MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s top handset chip designer, yesterday reported that revenues last month reached NT$7.53 billion (US$250 million), down 4.97 percent from September, but up 2.13 percent from the same month last year.
Sales for the first 10 months were down 26.92 percent to NT$71.73 billion, according to a company statement.
The chipmaker last week projected that fourth-quarter revenue would range between NT$22.9 billion and NT$24.5 billion, compared with NT$23.38 billion in the third quarter, as the company plans further aggressive price cuts to fend off competition from rivals such as China’s Spreadtrum Communications (展訊).
MediaTek also said last week that slower seasonality would impact on shipments of chips for optical storage, digital TVs and Blu-ray DVD players this quarter, while those of handsets would see better momentum thanks to orders from new Chinese clients.
Credit Suisse yesterday said in a client note that MediaTek appeared on track to meet its fourth-quarter guidance.
“To reach the fourth-quarter [guidance] midpoint, Mediatek would need a flat November and a 15 percent month-on-month growth in December. The early Lunar New Year in January next year should pull some orders into the fourth quarter,” said the brokerage firm, which put the chipmaker’s target price at NT$306.
Citigroup, however, warned last week that the market had overestimated MediaTek’s addressable China telecom market given its lack of CDMA technology and China Mobile’s (中國移動) preference for home-grown Spreadtrum. It suggested a target price of NT$210 for MediaTek, forecasting lackluster profitability growth next year.
Shares of MediaTek closed down 1.09 percent at NT$317.50 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, compared with the benchmark TAIEX’s 0.24 percent advance.
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],”
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
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