COMPUTERS
UBS tempers Asustek view
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday said it has sold more than 500 million motherboard units since 1989, when the company was established, but its shares ended down 4.8 percent amid market concerns about its product transition and weaker emerging market demand. UBS Securities Ltd yesterday downgraded Asustek shares to “neutral” from “buy,” and lowered its price target to NT$330 from NT$360. Asustek closed yesterday at NT$317 in Taipei trading. “We believe the depreciation of the Russian ruble and the euro, and rising sales in the low-margin smartphone business could dilute Asustek’s operating margin. We also believe Asustek could be hurt by potential foreign-exchange losses, due to the depreciation of emerging-market currencies,” UBS said in a note.
PLASTICS
China General sales to rise
As the decline in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) prices began to decelerate this month, while the fall in ethylene prices expanded further due to the plunge in global crude oil prices, China General Plastic Corp (華夏) is likely to increase PVC sales volume and therefore see improving cost competitiveness this quarter, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said on Tuesday. As PVC prices might rise next month in the US, reflecting stronger demand due to low inventory levels, product spread is predicted to expand this quarter, which will help improve China General’s gross margin and profitability, Yuanta said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
ScinoPharm faces pressure
ScinoPharm Taiwan (台灣神隆), which makes active pharmaceutical ingredients, might face heavier pricing pressure on its core oncology products this year, while its key custom manufacturing projects might continue to see inventory adjustments, Deutsche Bank said. The firm’s sales for this year might grow by 2.84 percent to NT$4.56 billion (US$143.44 million) from NT$4.43 billion last year, the bank forecast in a client note on Tuesday. ScinoPharm will also face challenges in controlling its research and development spending this year, as it transits toward vertical integration, meaning potential rising margin pressure going forward, the bank said.
BICYCLES
Giant posts record sales
Taiwan’s largest bicycle maker, Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械), saw a recovery in its own-brand business in Europe last year, while its marketing strategy in China also proved effective, allowing Giant to report stronger-than-expected sales for last year. Consolidated sales rose 19.4 percent year-on-year to NT$14.5 billion in the last quarter, pushing the full-year figure to increase 10.86 percent to NT$60.22 billion, the highest in the company’s history. Capital Securities Corp (群益證券) on Tuesday forecast Giant’s revenue for this year would grow 5.54 percent to NT$63.614 billion from last year, with net profit of NT$4.58 billion, up 15.12 percent year-on-year.
ELECTRONICS
Delta opens Singapore lab
Delta Electronics Inc (台達電), the nation’s biggest power system supplier, yesterday said it opened the Delta-IBN Life Science and Diagnostics Lab at Singapore’s Biopolis biomedical science park, which aims to develop next-generation infectious disease detection kits through collaboration with the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and local universities.
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