Retirement planning drives most affluent Taiwanese to invest and inflation is seen as the biggest threat to achieving their goals, an annual survey by Legg Mason Management Taiwan showed yesterday.
The survey showed 79 percent of rich Taiwanese with investable assets of at least US$1.4 million said retirement is the main reason for wealth management, compared with 56 percent in Hong Kong, 71 percent in Singapore and 57 percent in China.
Plans to grow wealth ranks second in terms of importance among Taiwanese investors at 69 percent, followed by a desire to maintain current living standards, at 61 percent, according to the survey.
“The findings fall in line with the nation’s fast-growing population of elderly people and living expenses,” said Rick Chen (陳宏達), local head of the US asset management company.
Around Asia, investors deem inflation as the foremost challenge to their portfolios, the survey found.
Fifty-one percent of Taiwanese respondents viewed inflation as the biggest threat to investment, compared with 56 percent in China, 53 percent in Singapore and 43 percent in Hong Kong, the survey showed.
In general, Taiwanese investors are looking at an average of 9.1 percent in returns, the highest in Asia, though realized gains stood at only 5.5 percent, the survey showed.
However, Taiwanese are more conservative than their global peers, as cash and cash equivalents make up 32 percent of their portfolios, compared with the global average of 27 percent, the survey showed.
Furthermore, 40 percent of Taiwanese investors voiced concern about the nation’s low economic growth, whereas their peers in the region care more about market volatility and wrong investment decisions, the survey showed.
The survey polled 4,320 affluent investors in 20 markets around the world from December last year to January.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San