TECHNOLOGY
Acer monitors top Europe
Taiwanese PC maker Acer Inc (宏碁) increased its monitor market share in Western Europe to reach the No. 1 position with 17.5 percent market share for retail sell-out last quarter, the firm said yesterday, citing sales tracking agency Context SalesWatch Distribution. Within the monitor market, Acer’s gaming monitor segment had over 38 percent market share in the first nine months of this year, with leading shares ranging from 28 percent to 60 percent in key markets, such as Germany, France and the UK, the firm said.
STOCK MARKET
HTC buyback on track
HTC Corp (宏達電) on Sunday said between Aug. 24 and Saturday it purchased back 4.11 million of its shares, or 8.22 percent of its planned 50 million-share buyback program, with an average stock price of NT$48.89. The firm spent NT$200 million (US$6.11 million) on the program, HTC said. The company in August announced a budget of up to US$60 million in the buyback scheme in a bid to boost investor confidence after the firm’s stock price plunged to its lowest-ever level of NT$40.45. HTC shares climbed 0.65 percent to close at NT$77.5 on the local bourse yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which gained 0.82 percent.
SMARTPHONES
Xiaomi tops China sales
The Chinese smartphone market saw sales of 106 million handsets in the last quarter, with local brand Xiaomi Inc (小米) securing the largest market share with 16.4 percent and Huawei Technologies Co (華為) ranking second with 16.2 percent, according to an IHS Technology sales tracking report released yesterday. Apple Inc ranked third place in the Chinese smartphone market last quarter, IHS Technology said.
MANUFACTURING
Coretronic plans job cuts
Coretronic Corp (中強光電), which makes display backlight modules, yesterday said it is to streamline its factory workforce in the nation to cope with slowing customer demand. Coretronic plans to cut 63 jobs at its Tainan factory at the end of this month. The company discharged 64 workers at its Hsinchu factory early this month as a result of its production relocation, Coretronic said in a company statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
RETAIL
7-Eleven, Starbucks team up
President Starbucks Coffee Corp (統一星巴克) — a joint venture between President Chain Store Corp (PCSC, 統一超商) and the Seattle-based coffee chain, Starbucks — is to set up Starbucks counters in 30 convenience stores in 12 cities in the nation, PCSC said yesterday. PCSC, the nation’s largest convenience store operator, said counters are to display a wide range of Starbucks products, including gift boxes, biscuits, instant coffee and bottled coffee. The company said it plans to increase the number of Starbucks counters in 7-Eleven stores next year.
BANKING
Mortgage loans edge up
Mortgage loans gained 0.25 percent month-on-month to reach NT$5.98 trillion among major local banks last month, while construction lending grew 0.11 percent to NT$1.66 trillion over the same period, the central bank said yesterday. The increase came despite housing transactions remaining weak last month. Home-repair loans dropped 2.38 percent to NT$198.86 billion last month, the central bank said, as people cut budgets on home improvements.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained