Metal casing manufacturer Catcher Technology Co (可成科技) yesterday said sales would rise from this month through the end of the year after the company on Saturday reported less-than-expected sales of NT$3.81 billion (US$129.56 million) last month.
The figure represents a 18.1 percent growth from NT$3.22 billion in August and a 26.7 percent increase from NT$3 billion in September last year, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The result showed Catcher, which supplies casings for Apple Inc, HTC Corp (宏達電) and Dell Inc, failed to meet its target of record high sales for last month.
“Because most smartphone vendors postponed their schedules and started shipping products from this month, sales last month fell short of the company’s estimate,” Catcher chief financial officer James Wu (巫俊毅) said by telephone yesterday.
“Shortage in labor supply in China was also a factor behind our less-than-expected sales last month,” he added.
Cumulative sales from January to September amounted to NT$30.13 billion, up 11.11 percent from NT$27.11 billion during the same period last year, according to the company.
Catcher hopes sales will climb higher in the remaining months of the year as Samsung Electronics Co, Sony and Apple launched their new smartphone products last month. HTC will introduce its new phablet HTC One Max later this month.
“Not only will new smartphone products be Catcher’s sales drivers over the following months, clients’ new tablets and laptops are also expected to boost Catcher’s orders and sales by the end of the year,” Wu said.
He said the company’s sales are likely to peak this quarter, as Apple is set to unveil its new-generation iPad and iPad mini tablets and PC brands like Acer Inc (宏碁) and Dell are planning to roll out Windows 8.1-supported products later this month.
Catcher expects its quarterly sales to reach between NT$10.5 billion and NT$11 billion this quarter, about 0.59 percent to 5.38 percent more than last quarter’s NT$10.43 billion, Wu added.
Shares in Catcher closed down 4.52 percent to NT$158.5 yesterday, underperforming the benchmark TAIEX, which fell 0.37 percent.
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],”
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
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