Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday reported revenue of NT$25.52 billion (US$885.34 million) for last month, up 43.2 percent year-on-year, but down 13.5 percent month-on-month.
A sales breakdown showed that revenue for notebook computers grew by 70.3 percent year-on-year, monitors rose 43.3 percent and gaming products surged by 62 percent, the company said.
“Demand continues to be stronger than supply,” the company said in a press release, crediting continued COVID-19 pandemic-induced demand for laptops and other information and communications technology (ICT) products.
Photo: Wu Pei-hua, Taipei Times
The pandemic has driven strong work-from-home orders this year, boosting the company’s operations as well as shipments of gaming PCs and Chromebooks.
Cumulative revenue in the first 10 months of the year increased 15.5 percent from a year ago to NT$220 billion, Acer said.
“Given COVID-19’s spread globally in the second quarter and the rising number of confirmed cases year to date, we expect work-from-home orders to remain strong in the second half of 2020, with robust shipments of educational tablets and notebook computers,” Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a note ahead of the release of last month’s sales data.
Yuanta forecast that Acer’s fourth-quarter revenue would decline 3 percent from last quarter to NT$77.9 billion, given the coming low season.
Meanwhile, Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) reported revenue last month dropped 4.5 percent month-on-month and 3.72 percent year-on-year to NT$14.1 billion.
Its optoelectronics segment contributed 20 percent to total sales, while ICT business accounted for 76 percent, the electronic components maker said.
Given the ongoing demand growth from LED components, optoelectronics posted sales growth of approximately 10 percent from a year ago, Lite-On said, referring to the invisible LEDs used in 5G and artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) applications, UV LED products and LED outdoor lighting.
Cumulative sales for the first 10 months of the year totaled NT$129.77 billion, down 12.58 percent year-on-year, the firm said.
Yuanta said Lite-On’s businesses related to 5G, AIoT and game console products would grow slightly this quarter, while its PC-related business would be impacted by seasonal factors, projecting revenue this quarter to drop 5 percent from last quarter.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts