Credit Suisse Group AG yesterday estimated that Taiwanese companies would see their profits decline by 2 percent this year from last year, even though the local stock market is the third-best performing in Asia, after Thailand and Indonesia.
“Accumulated profits among Taiwanese firms have declined 8 percent year-to-date from the same period last year,” Credit Suisse’s Taiwan market strategist Chung Hsu (許忠維) said at a news conference in Taipei for the 16th Credit Suisse Asian Technology Conference.
Hsu attributed the decline partly to the 5 percent year-to-date appreciation in the New Taiwan dollar and the nation’s feeble exports.
Taiwanese firms’ earnings would decline by 2 percent for each 1 percent of appreciation in the NT dollar, he said.
According to Credit Suisse data, earnings of Taiwanese companies dropped 28 percent and 10 percent in the first and second quarters respectively, with an estimated rebound of 18 percent in the third quarter.
“Profits are expected to increase 31 percent in the fourth quarter, given a relatively low base last year,” Hsu said. “The earnings growth would become stable by the end of this year, which could lend support to the nation’s stock market.”
The benchmark TAIEX gained 0.84 percent to reach 9,259.07 points yesterday.
Credit Suisse is more optimistic about Taiwanese companies’ earnings outlook for next year, citing a recovery in the global semiconductor sector so far this year.
Randy Abrams, Credit Suisse’s head of equities research in Taiwan, said that the semiconductor industry’s performance this year is anticipated to rebound from a weak year last year.
Upstream semiconductor companies’ sales are expected to grow by 4.8 percent this year, compared with last year’s 1.4 percent annual growth, Credit Suisse said.
Abrams said Taiwan’s semiconductor companies might benefit from the increasing shipments of Chinese-made smartphones in the 4G era, while automative electronic applications and virtual-reality products are also seen as future profit drivers.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group