Tue, Jun 07, 2005 page11

• Business Briefs

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
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  PC market shrinks

  The nation's personal computer (PC) market, including desktops and notebooks, shrank mainly on seasonality to 514,540 units in the first quarter of this year, down 26 percent sequentially or 3 percent from a year ago, International Data Corp (IDC) said in a statement released yesterday.

  Smaller-than-expected government procurements, combined with unexpected financial problems among information-technology product distributors, depressed total sales behind previous forecasts in the January-March quarter, IDC said.

  Meanwhile, sales for notebooks grew by 4 percent year-on-year to 124,926 units in the first quarter, with the top four vendors -- Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), Acer Inc, Hewlett-Packard Taiwan Ltd and IBM Taiwan Corp -- holding 77 percent of the market, the statement said.

  The sales of desktops, however, slid by 5 percent from one year ago to 389,614 units, IDC said. The nation's desktop industry appeared to be fragmented, as the top four vendors -- Acer, HP, IBM and Asustek -- made up only 29 percent of the market.

  Looking ahead, the April-June quarter was expected to see marginal growth compared to the slack first quarter, despite the possibility of the commercial PC segment remaining slow, because of delayed tenders for government purchasing and nearly exhausted replacement demand, as well as a less active consumer PC market with the end of the tax season last month, the research house said.

  Taishin in big bond sale

  Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), the nation's second-largest credit-card issuer, sold NT$9.6 billion (US$307.5 million) of bonds backed by credit-card receivables.

  The bonds have a maturity of three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years, and will pay interest of as much as 80 basis points more than the benchmark rate for 90-day Taiwanese primary commercial paper, currently at 1.5 percent, said Matthew Liaw, the Taipei-based head of asset-backed securities at ABN Amro Holding NV, which arranged the sale.

  Taishin will use the funds raised for working capital, Liaw said. Taishin International is a unit of Taishin Financial Holdings Co (台新金控), the nation's eighth-largest financial services company.

  Shareholder demands scalps

  A SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (建華金控) shareholder sent a letter to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Financial Supervisory Commission last week seeking to suspend SinoPac chairman Edward Chien (簡弘道) and two executive directors from duties, a Chinese-language newspaper said.

  Shareholder Lin Kun-yung (林昆永) made the request after alleging that the company's board election last month was invalid, the newspaper said.

  "The company's operations won't be affected," SinoPac public relations officer Lee Mei-ling (李玫玲) said by telephone yesterday in response to the report. "It's only the opinion of a shareholder."

  Chien on May 24 became chairman of SinoPac, the nation's 10th-biggest lender, succeeding Richard Hong (洪敏弘).

  NT dollar up strongly

  The New Taiwan dollar had its strongest close in almost a month on speculation investors abroad will buy more local stocks.

  The NT dollar rose NT$0.078 to close at NT$31.225 against its US counterpart, its highest close since May 11, on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$604 million.

  Foreign investors bought a net NT$30 billion (US$960 million) of shares last week, from NT$22 billion the previous week, after a change in indexes that fund managers use to benchmark their performance. They bought a net NT$1.9 billion of shares yesterday.
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