Major Taiwanese contract PC makers expect business to rebound this quarter, after sales dropped last quarter by double-digit percentages during the slow season.
“With the strong demand for the new Zenfone 2 smartphone, we expect our sales this quarter to increase from last quarter,” Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) spokesman David Chang (張偉明) told the Taipei Times yesterday, without offering a sales estimate.
The company’s consolidated sales fell 18.9 percent from the previous quarter to NT$111.89 billion (US$3.58 billion) last quarter, which Asustek attributed to seasonal factors, but the firm said the softness would not extend to this quarter.
Chang also said Asustek did not suffer from foreign-exchange losses last quarter because it had taken measures to limit its exposure to currency volatility in emerging markets.
The company booked massive foreign-exchange losses of NT$713 million in the final quarter of last year, due to the depreciation of the ruble against the US dollar. The losses eroded its gross margin by 1 percentage point to 12.6 percent in that quarter.
Compal Electronics Co (仁寶電腦) saw its sales last quarter fall 19.55 percent from the previous quarter to NT$198.3 billion, but the figure grew 16.9 percent from the previous year.
“The strong annual growth was mainly driven by double-digit percentage shipment growth of smart devices, and we expect the strong momentum to continue this quarter,” Compal spokesperson Tina Chang (張妍婷) said by telephone.
The company expects sales of notebook and non-notebook products, including smartphones, tablets and TVs, to grow by double-digit percentages this quarter, she said.
Compal shipped 9.3 million notebooks last quarter, up 5 percent from the previous quarter and accounting for 75 percent of the firm’s total revenues last quarter, she added.
Sales at Inventec Corp (英業達) last quarter plunged 20.79 percent to NT$89.3 billion from the previous quarter’s NT$112.74 billion, 23.47 percent lower than the previous year.
However, the company expects growing shipments of PC-related products from new clients to drive up this quarter’s sales.
“In addition to the strong demand for servers and mobile devices, we expect PC shipments this quarter to increase significantly from last quarter,” Inventec chief financial officer Yu Chin-pao (游進寶) said.
Inventec shipped 3.55 million PCs last quarter and the company expects the shipments to jump 40 percent to 4.97 million units this quarter, Yu said.
Compal shares climbed 0.76 percent to NT$26 yesterday in Taipei trading, while Asustek shares rose 0.63 percent to NT$319 and Inventec stock dropped 0.2 percent to NT$21.7.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS