Wintek Corp (勝華), which supplies touchpanels to Amazon.com, Inc and Chinese handset maker Xiaomi Corp (小米), yesterday said its revenue plunged about 34 percent last month due to slow seasonal demand for tablets and smartphones.
Wintek’s revenue declined to NT$5.01 billion (US$165 million) last month, compared with NT$7.55 billion in December last year, a company statement said. The figure was down by about 32 percent from the NT$7.35 billion it posted in January last year.
“The contraction is primarily because of slow seasonal demand in the first quarter… Demand for tablets and smartphones, in particular, are affected by seasonal sentiment,” company spokesman Jay Huang (黃傑洲) said by telephone.
“The Lunar New Year holiday also curtailed end-customer demand [for electronics],” Huang added.
In a strategic shift, Wintek plans to develop more touchpanels primarily for smartphones this year to gain more orders from existing clients, Huang said.
Currently, one-glass-solution touchpanels mostly used in PCs are the major product shipped by Wintek, accounting for more than 70 percent of its total shipments, Huang said.
Wintek shares tumbled 1.68 percent to NT$9.93 yesterday, versus the TAIEX’s 2.34 percent loss, while local rival TPK Holding Co Ltd (宸鴻) plunged 2.86 percent to NT$186.5.
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
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