Mark Mobius, who manages about US$7 billion globally for Franklin Templeton Investments, says now is a good time to buy Asian technology stocks because prices are expected to rebound next year.
"Companies in [South] Korea and Taiwan are the ones you want to buy," Mobius said in an interview. "You have a wide range of component makers there."
Mobius said he's increased his investments in both countries and plans to buy more shares in makers of flat-panel displays, notebook computers, semiconductors and other electronic parts.
Shares of South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
TSMC said yesterday it expects net income in the fourth quarter to rise more than 150 percent from the preceding quarter to NT$3 billion (US$87 million). Sales in the fourth quarter are forecast to climb to NT$33 billion from NT$27 billion.
Samsung Electronics and TSMC stayed profitable this year, while Japanese chipmakers Fujitsu Ltd and Toshiba Corp reported losses amid a slowdown in the semiconductor industry that analysts say will cut global sales by a third this year to US$117 billion.
While profits for all chipmakers have withered, Taiwan chip designers such as Realtek Semiconductor Corp (
Realtek, which designs chips that help manage the flow of data in computer networks, said third-quarter profit rose 22 percent to NT$1.6 billion from a year ago. Sunplus, a designer of chips for consumer electronics products, said profit in the period increased 15 percent to NT$1.7 billion.
Other Taiwan chip designers say they're making a comeback.
Acer Laboratories Inc (揚智科技), which was Taiwan's largest chip designer in the early 1990s amid a PC boom, says it's making chips for DVD players and has a quarter of the market.
"Our first half next year will be better than our first half this year," Acer Labs President Chin Wu said in an interview. "We're shipping about a million DVD chips a month."
Wu declined to say whether Acer Labs, which has posted losses since 1999, will turn a profit next year. Acer Labs makes chips which work with Intel Corp's Pentium4 processor in PCs, says its Pentium4-related sales still account for less than a 10th of revenue.
"All the technology companies in Taiwan should see a correction," said James Liu, who counts shares in TSMC among the NT$2.8 billion he helps manage at ING CHB Securities Investment & Trust Co. "It would be a great time to wait for a pull-back."
Liu said he likes Taiwan notebook makers such as Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩).
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