President Chain Store Corp (PCSC, 統一超商) yesterday announced a new collaboration with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) to sell tablet computers at its 7-Eleven stores.
The nation’s largest convenience store chain operator also launched sales of a new 50-inch LED TV made by Hon Hai for less than NT$20,000 (US$675), after the two started their partnership in TV sales in late June.
Hon Hai manufactures three models of Internet TV for President, under the brand of the convenience store chain’s cartoon mascot, Open, with a total of 15,000 units sold in the first three months.
PCSC is aiming to sell 3,000 units of the 7-inch tablet in the first three months of the sales, with pre-sales beginning today.
“Under our pipeline are five to 10 new products made by Hon Hai, including smartphone products,” said Liu Hong-cheng (劉鴻徵), the head of 7net, President Chain’s online shopping portal.
Liu said the company hopes the second-round sales of TV products reach the levels recorded in the first-round sales.
The portal is set to drive up revenue by 30 percent per year on the back of sales of these new products. Sales via 7net account for only about 1 percent of President’s overall revenue, but it said it would not ignore the rise in online shopping.
SPECULATION: The central bank cut the loan-to-value ratio for mortgages on second homes by 10 percent and denied grace periods to prevent a real-estate bubble The central bank’s board members in September agreed to tighten lending terms to induce a soft landing in the housing market, although some raised doubts that they would achieve the intended effect, the meeting’s minutes released yesterday showed. The central bank on Sept. 18 introduced harsher loan restrictions for mortgages across Taiwan in the hope of curbing housing speculation and hoarding that could create a bubble and threaten the financial system’s stability. Toward the aim, it cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for second and subsequent home mortgages and denied grace periods for first mortgages if applicants already owned other residential
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing manufacturing (ATM) service provider, expects to double its leading-edge advanced technology services revenue next year to more than US$1 billion, benefiting from strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, a company executive said on Thursday. That would be the second year that ASE has doubled its advanced chip packaging and testing technology revenue, following an estimate of more than US$500 million for this year. ASE is one of the major beneficiaries from the AI boom as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is outsourcing production of advanced chip
TECHNOLOGY EXIT: The selling of Apple stock might be related to the death of Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger last year, an analyst said Billionaire Warren Buffett is now sitting on more than US$325 billion in cash after continuing to unload billions of US dollars worth of Apple Inc and Bank of America Corp shares this year and continuing to collect a steady stream of profits from all of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s assorted businesses without finding any major acquisitions. Berkshire on Saturday said it sold off about 100 million more Apple shares in the third quarter after halving its massive investment in the iPhone maker the previous quarter. The remaining stake of about 300 million shares was valued at US$69.9 billion at the end of