Share prices of local technology firms have mostly risen in the last two sessions, buoyed by reports of strong retail sales over the “Black Friday” shopping weekend in the US, but the aggressive door-buster deals “do not constitute an all-clear signal on channel inventories,” Primasia Investment Consultancy Co said yesterday.
While the US holiday shopping season got off to a strong start, “We believe there is reason to take these figures with a significant pinch of salt — especially with Europe still teetering on the brink,” Primasia said in a client note.
Leading smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) surged 4.77 percent to NT$494 yesterday, ending three sessions of declines and helping boost overall market sentiment, while PC maker Acer Inc (宏碁) rose 2.14 percent to NT$33.4 and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) grew 2.81 percent to NT$201.5.
Shares of TPK Holding Co (宸鴻), which supplies touch panels for Apple Inc’s iPad and iPhone, jumped 6.9 percent to NT$410.5, Largan Precision Co (大立光), Taiwan’s leading maker of handset lenses, increased 4.55 percent to NT$517 and Simplo Technology Co (新普科技), the world’s largest notebook battery pack maker, advanced 5.24 percent to NT$170.5.
Based on preliminary estimates by the Washington-based National Retail Federation released on Sunday, US consumers spent a record US$52.4 billion on sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, a 16.4 percent increase from a year ago. Per-shopper sales increased 9.11 percent to US$398.62 from US$365.34 a year ago, the data showed.
In addition, New York market research company NPD Group data showed that electronics remained the second-most popular product category in Black Friday sales after clothing, with TVs reportedly outpacing PCs to become the most purchased electronics item.
Even so, Primasia said the strong Black Friday sales would not necessarily indicate a tech recovery ahead.
“It would be misleading to extrapolate from what has proven to be a misleading indicator of holiday season sales in the US,” Primasia said in the note. “Black Friday sales growth has surpassed full-season growth by 9.4 percent over the past five years. In fact, average Black Friday sales growth has outpaced full-season growth by a factor of 10 during the past five years.”
Citigroup Global Markets analyst Arthur Lai (賴昱璋) also maintained a cautious attitude on whether the Black Friday buying spree on LCD TVs would continue into the year-end Christmas holidays.
In his note to clients on Monday, Lai said that while TV inventories are depleting on the vendor side, what the flat-panel industry needs to see is whether, and when, inventory restocking will happen, which would shed light on the near-term trend of panel prices.
Shares of AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) were up 1.44 percent to NT$14.1 and Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子) advanced 0.79 percent to NT$12.8 yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy