Tourism keeps GDP on track
Barclays Bank has left its forecast for the nation’s GDP growth unchanged at 4.1 percent for this year, citing thriving tourism and improving exports.
Leong Wai Ho (梁偉豪), an economist with Barclays, said in a research report on Friday that the booming tourism sector is likely to help drive the economy.
Chinese tourists alone are expected to generate US$6 billion in business this year, he said.
Travel across the Taiwan Strait has improved, he said, adding that direct flights have increased from 370 flights every week in 2011 to 828 every week as of April.
During the first six months of the year, the nation saw arrivals from China grow 38.1 percent, Leong said.
The nation also saw improving export figures during the previous two months and a scheduled new round of trade negotiations with China would also help improve the economic environment, he said.
Nation high on wealth list
Taiwan has been ranked second in Asia, behind only Japan in terms of per capita financial assets, pegged at 66,010 euros (US$83,730) at the end of last year, according to a report released last week by the Germany-based Allianz Group.
The group’s Global Wealth Report showed Taiwan’s per capita household financial assets, including bank deposits, securities, hedge funds and insurance policies, have been ranked seventh in the global rating.
Japan finished fifth with 71,190 euros and Singapore ninth with 64,520 euros.
The Allianz survey has declared Switzerland (146,540 euros), the US (119,570 euros), Belgium (78,300 euros) and the Netherlands (71,430 euros) the world’s four wealthiest countries.
Quanta expects Q3 boost
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s largest contract laptop designer and manufacturer, on Saturday said that peak season effects are expected to boost third quarter shipments by more than 10 percent from the 10.50 million units recorded a quarter earlier.
The third quarter could be a peak for the year and the sequential growth in the fourth quarter could show a slowdown, the company said.
Quanta said the strong showing in July and last month is expected to boost shipments for the third quarter as a whole.
The firm also expects shipments for next month to continue to slow down in an extension from this month, before demand picks up in November ahead of the Christmas shopping season.
MediaTek expands in US
Integrated circuit designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that it has opened a branch in San Diego, California, as part of its efforts to improve its research and development capabilities in the US.
The new site adds to MediaTek’s other US branches in San Jose, Boston, Austin and Irvine.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the new branch would work on advanced 4G smartphone chips, adding that MediaTek is expected to supply its US clients with new chips next year.
“The ambition is to become more global,” MediaTek chief marketing officer Johan Lodenius said in the report.
“We started with 4G LTE [long-term evolution] in Europe and in China because that is where we saw the most opportunity. Now we are working on the specs for the US,” he said.
TSMC still tops orders
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is still supplying some processor chips for Apple Inc’s new iPhones, although more orders are going to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), according to a report released last week by research firm IHS Technology Inc.
Andrew Rassweiler, an IHS analyst who supervised the teardown of the new iPhones, said on Tuesday that TSMC is manufacturing about 60 percent of the A8 chips for Apple, while Samsung is supplying about 40 percent.
The report said the A8 chip integrates twice the number of transistors as the previous-generation A7 processor used in iPhone 5S, but the part is still smaller than the A7 due to the use of more advanced manufacturing technology.
With its more advanced design and manufacturing, the A8 chip in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus costs US$20, compared with US$17 for the A7 in iPhone 5S, according to the report.
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