Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC brand, yesterday said it expected revenues to drop 5 to 10 percent in the fourth quarter from the third quarter, in wake of flooding in Thailand, which has impacted production of hard disk drives.
The company joined its bigger domestic rival, Acer Inc (宏碁), which last week also predicted a revenue drop within a similar range for the fourth quarter, given the severe floods that have wreaked havoc in Thailand — which produces nearly half of the world’s hard drives.
“If we take out the flooding factor, fourth-quarter revenue may remain flat from the third,” Asustek chief executive Jerry Shen (沈振來) told investors.
To maintain profitability, the company will join Acer in raising average sales prices and downgrade hardware of selected notebooks starting in the fourth quarter to reflect the price hike of hard drives, he said.
The company expected an average of a 3 to 6 percent price increase for notebooks industry-wise because of the hard drive shortage.
Asustek posted revenues of NT$102.04 billion (US$3.4 billion) in the third quarter, up 24 percent year-on-year and a 42 percent quarter-on-quarter jump.
The figure was a record after the company split its manufacturing arm from its brand-name business in July last year. The rise was attributed to strong growth in shipments in Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific, especially China, it said.
Earnings were NT$4.68 billion, or NT$6.22 per share, up 11 percent from last year and a rise of 30 percent from the second quarter.
The company aims to ship 4.1 million notebooks, 1.2 million netbooks, 600,000 tablets and 6 million motherboards in the fourth quarter.
It shipped 4.3 million notebooks, 1.3 million netbooks, 800,000 tablets and 6.3 million motherboards for the third quarter.
The company expects emerging markets, which currently contributes 62 percent to total sales compared with 38 percent for mature markets, to drive growth next year.
The emerging markets include China, Brazil and India.
New products that will drive growth include the Padfone — a smartphone-tablet combo — to be unveiled in February next year and a second model of its popular tablet, the Transformer, this month.
Despite Asustek’s efforts to boost its PC presence, Cheng Kai-ming (鄭開明), an analyst with Horizon Securities (宏遠證券), does not expect Asustek to see any changes in its PC ranking next year.
“The competition is tough as the top four vendors are very strong. Unless Acer continues to lose market share, Asustek’s ranking next year will be little changed even if one or two models of its products manage to stand out,” Cheng said.
Shares of Asustek yesterday closed down 3 percent to NT$210.5 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange before the investors’ conference.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary