While consumers are considering a class-action lawsuit against Dell Inc over a pricing mistake, the Taiwanese branch of the global personal computer vendor said yesterday it would provide NT$1,000 (US$30.50) to NT$3,000 coupons to compensate consumers for their losses.
But the cash rewards are far below the Consumer Protection Commission’s recommendation that Dell honor its mispricing of the Dell E1090W 19-inch monitor, which it quoted at NT$500 per unit.
On Tuesday, the commission ordered Dell to sell the monitors to shoppers at the misquoted price, after the company advertised two sizes of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) monitors at around one-tenth of their normal prices on June 25.
A 19-inch monitor was listed at NT$500, far below its regular price of NT$7,500. Dell later said the prices had been incorrectly advertised.
News of the offer spread quickly via e-mail, blogs and sites like Twitter. In the six hours before Dell corrected the prices on Friday morning, 26,000 Taiwanese had placed orders online for 140,000 LCD monitors.
The regular online discounted retail price for the 19-inch LCD monitor is NT$4,800, which means the company may have to absorb up to NT$602 million in losses, as well as carry out all terms of the original product warranty, if it had to follow the commission’s direction.
The commission, which had received 471 complaints, said in a statement that companies must honor all promises made in their promotional campaigns.
Those who had ordered more than one unit should receive diminishing discounts on the second and succeeding units, the commission said, adding that failure to do so would result in Dell facing a group legal action for violating the Fair Trade Law (公平交易法).
For consumers who opted to cancel their order, the commission requires Dell to reasonably compensate them for their trouble.
However, the compensation must not be lower in value than what was stated in the marketing material, the commission said.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
RSS