The nation’s listed companies saw their combined sales on a consolidated basis for last month fall slightly from July, although they grew steadily compared with a year ago fueled by the global economic recovery, according to tallies compiled by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE).
Based on the stock exchange’s latest statistics, the aggregate sales of 810 listed companies totaled NT$2.282 trillion (US$75.9 billion) last month, down 1.93 percent from the NT$2.327 trillion recorded in the previous month, but up 4.29 percent from the NT$2.188 trillion seen a year earlier.
The benchmark TAIEX fell 0.37 percent from the previous session to close at 9,322.95 points yesterday as many investors took to the sidelines to wait for a clear sign of this month’s sales reports from electronics makers following new product launches by major global brands.
Foreign institutional investors and domestic proprietary traders sold net of NT$1.49 billion and NT$643 million in Taiwanese shares respectively, with net sale of NT$269 million by local securities investment trust firms, according to the TWSE tallies.
Of the total listed companies, 472 companies posted annual increases in sales — mainly those in the building material and construction sector, semiconductor industry, and financial and insurance-related segments, TWSE said in a statement.
“Building material and construction sectors reported a substantial increase in sales last month because of the contribution from new-project completions in the month,” the TWSE said.
“Strong demand for mobile devices continued to push up sales in the semiconductor industry last month, especially those in the wafer foundry, chip designing and DRAM sectors, while those in the financial and insurance industry posted better revenues than in July because of bank acquisitions and loan business growth,” the stock exchange added.
However, Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) analyst George Chang (張家麒) said the sales of major semiconductor firms might have peaked last month and he was unsure how severe the inventory adjustments might be or how long they could last.
UBS Securities Pte Ltd also holds conservative revenue forecast for the semiconductor companies in the upcoming months, citing negative factors of seasonal slowdown and inventory correction.
“We currently estimate fourth-quarter revenue to rise quarter-on-quarter by 5 percent at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and 10 percent at Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體),” UBS Taiwan equities and research head William Dong (董成康) said in a client note.
“We also expect revenue to remain flat at United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) in the fourth quarter and decline by 1 percent at Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密), 6 percent at MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and 7 percent at Realtek Semiconductor Corp (瑞昱),” Dong said.
Meanwhile, the TWSE’s latest tallies indicated that 338 listed companies reported sales declines last month compared with a year ago, mainly by firms in the plastics, biotechnology, medical care and oil, gas and electricity-related sectors.
In the first eight months of the year, aggregate sales of all listed companies amounted to NT$17.88 trillion, up 5.09 percent from a year ago, with 518 firms seeing total revenue rising annually and declining sales at 292 firms, the TWSE said.
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