Taiwanese handset maker HTC Corp (宏達電) still needs to prove itself in terms of products, execution and marketing, despite rival Apple Inc forecasting a lower-than-expected result for the current quarter, a Swiss bank said yesterday.
In its latest research note, Credit Suisse Group AG said that investors are cautious about whether Apple’s weaker sales forecast will create an opportunity for HTC to come back.
“We find it difficult to believe that Apple will completely miss the product cycle of smartphones with larger-sized screens — to HTC’s benefit — unless there is a supply bottleneck,” Credit Suisse analyst Pauline Chen (陳柏齡) said.
In the long term, Chen remained concerned about the Taoyuan-based company’s increasing difficulties in product differentiation and intensifying competition from other brands.
HTC’s global delivery and marketing abilities remain shaky following several quarters of disappointing performances, she wrote in the note.
On Wednesday last week, Apple said it expected revenue for the quarter to March would range between US$41 billion and US$43 billion, which is below a previous market estimate of US$45.5 billion and has sparked concern about weakening demand for iPhones.
In the quarter ending last month, the US technology giant posted US$54.5 billion in revenue, slightly lower than a previous market forecast of US$54.9 billion. Its net profit was US$13.1 billion, or US$13.81 in earnings per share, which beat market expectations of US$13.53.
In a Jan. 21 report, US bank Citigroup Inc said that Apple is not expected to launch a larger version of its iPhone this year, leaving open a short window of opportunity which HTC could seize to stabilize its share of the high-end smartphone market.
The bank added that Apple’s share of the high-end smartphone sector is unlikely to grow this year due to weak sales of its iPhone 5, whose 4-inch display appears to be failing to satisfy the prevailing consumer preference for screens larger than 4.7 inches.
Citigroup said that South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co could see its share in the smartphone market grow by between 70 percent and 80 percent in the wake of Apple’s slowdown, while second-tier brands like HTC could grow by 25 percent to 40 percent on aggregate.
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
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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