Inventec Appliances Corp (
Shares of Taipei-based Inventec Appliances, which assembles Apple Inc's iPods last year, rose NT$4.30, or 6.96 percent, to NT$66.10.
A public relationship officer at Inventec Appliance said by phone yesterday that the company doesn't comment on market speculation, citing client confidentiality. She declined to be named.
"It makes sense Inventec Appliances will continue to assemble hard-disk drive-based iPods," said Andrew Wang, who helps manage the equivalent of US$1.2 billion at Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise (
Apple shares also rose 5.7 percent overnight in New York on speculation the company will debut new versions of the iPod media player, and that its iTunes store may start selling music from the Beatles.
Cupertino, California-based Apple e-mailed invitations on Wednesday to a Sept. 5 event called "The Beat Goes On." They show a silhouetted dancer carrying an iPod, with album covers in the background, suggesting Apple may debut new iPods, according to analysts including Goldman Sachs Group Inc's David Bailey.
New iPods may prompt buyers to upgrade devices in the next two quarters, the New York-based analyst said in a report.
The wording of the e-mail also suggests Apple may have reached a deal with the Beatles after ending decades of litigation this year, Piper Jaffray & Co's Gene Munster said.
"We expect Apple to launch several unreleased tracks and other special Beatles-related content," the Minneapolis-based analyst said in a report yesterday. "The beat goes on" were the final words used in the Beatles' last press release in 1970, a sign CEO Steve Jobs may announce a deal for their music, Munster said.
Apple shares increased US$7.26 to close at US$134.08 on Wednesday in NASDAQ Stock Market trading, the most in a month.
Jobs hasn't updated the iPod since last year's introduction of the US$79 Shuffle. The company has sold more than 100 million iPods since their debut in 2001. It's the best-selling digital media player in the US, with about a 70 percent share of the market, according to the NPD Group Inc in Port Washington, New York.
UBS AG analyst Benjamin Reitzes said he expects a new version of Apple's pencil-thin Nano with more storage and an update of the video iPod that includes the touch screen display that debuted in the iPhone in June.
The iPhone combines a music and video player with a mobile handset and has a 3.5-inch color screen, compared with the 2.5- inch display Apple currently offers on the video iPod.
Despite its surging share prices, things have not been going as smoothly for Inventec Appliance's executives.
On Aug. 8, prosecutors at Banciao District Prosecutors' Office charged nine Inventec Appliances officials, including chairman Jackson Chang (
The company has denied any wrongdoing by its executives in the case and said the prosecutors' indictment case would not affect its operations and financial structure.
Additional reporting by Jason Tan
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