Inventec Corp (英業達) shares soared 5.27 percent yesterday — the stock’s biggest one-day percentage gain since Jan. 27 — on market rumors that the company might be supplying wireless earphones for Apple Inc’s new iPhones.
However, shares in other Apple supply-chain companies saw a mixed day of trading, despite the launch of iPhone 7 models by the US company in San Francisco overnight, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — Apple’s main chip supplier — and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), one of the main assemblers of iPhones, retreating by 0.54 percent and 1.26 percent respectively.
Shares of another iPhone assembler, Pegatron Corp (和碩), were unchanged, while Largan Precision Co (大立光), Apple’s main camera lens supplier, fell 0.94 percent, and metal casing supplier Catcher Technology Co (可成) rose 3.88 percent.
An analsyt said the new iPhones had failed to impress the market, as there were no major surprises with the new handset and an upgrade of its specifications had been widely anticipated.
Most Apple suppliers might see year-on-year revenues contract for the rest of the year, mainly due to a conservative outlook following the new handset’s launch and pricing pressure, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) analyst Jeff Pu (蒲得宇) said in a client note.
Apple on Wednesday introduced its own wireless earbud — the AirPod — that connects wirelessly to the iPhone 7.
Prior to the launch, KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) analyst Kuo Ming-chi (郭明錤) predicted that the US company would introduce its first wireless earphone.
In a client’s note released on Saturday last week, Kuo said TSMC would produce communication chips for the wireless earphones, while Inventec or Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co (正崴) might be the contract manufacturer for AirPods.
Inventec yesterday denied it is making AirPods for Apple.
“We did not supply wireless earphones this year,” Inventec’s investors relationship officer said by telephone, declining to elaborate.
More than 21.64 million Inventec shares changed hands yesterday, the stock’s largest one-day volume increase over the past two months, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Inventec shares closed at NT$24.95 in Taipei trading, while Cheng Uei shares rose 2.24 percent to NT$41.1.
Presale orders in Taiwan and several other countries are to start today and the handsets will be available from Friday next week.
It is the first time Taiwan has been included in the first round of global sales of Apple’s new generation of smartphones.
The handset will retail for NT$24,500, Apple said.
In addition to Taiwan, the US, the UK, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, the Netherlands and Italy have also been included in the first round of global sales, Apple said.
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