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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (8280)	12/11/2003 9:24:07 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Taiwan Becomes Talk of Town By Suzanne Deffree and John Mason -- 12/10/2003 11:55:00 AM Talk on Taiwan is heating up again. Rumours have begun to circulate that the two top foundries, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and United Microelectronics Corp., may be looking to raise their prices in 2004. While neither Taiwanese giant could be reached for comment, Brian Matas, VP of market research at IC Insights, says the rumours could be true. "After two almost three years of just being battered as IC manufacturers, these companies will probably try to hold a little more firm to pricing and try to raise some of their prices," Matas said. "Despite the fact that some systems manufacturers may not like that, I think the IC guys are going to try for as long as they can to keep prices up or push them even higher to make up for some of the losses they have endured for the last few years." On Tuesday, the foundries also announced November revenue numbers contradicting their usual sales patterns. For the month, TSMC, the No. 1 foundry, lost about 9 percent on a sequential basis, while No. 2 foundry UMC saw a slight 0.47 percent gain. UMC, which usually lags behind TSMC on a growth percentage basis, also beat out its rival on a November year-over-year basis showing a 28 percent improvement versus TSMC's 27 percent increase. Meanwhile, visiting Silicon Valley experts and local venture capital companies predict that Taiwan’s information technology industry and biotechnology will continue to perform well over the next three to five years. According to Chen Wu Fu, co-founder of Acorn Campus, local companies have been shifting their focus from pure manufacturing -- a model already used by multinationals such as IBM, HP, Dell and Apple -- to developing high value-added solutions in the areas of mobile computing, storage and networking. Local notebook PC makers have also been talkative, saying their shipments in November remained strong following equally strong growth in October, according to the Taipei Computer Association data. Much of the sales were due to schools starting up in the United States, and the approaching Christmas season. The big winners were ODM orders from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and several Japanese companies, such as Toshiba and NEC. In total, Taiwanese manufacturers are set to ship more than 24 million notebook computers this year, a third more than last year, analysts at the semi-official Market Intelligence Center (MIC) said. Approximately 37.6 million notebooks will be sold this year, 24.3 million of them produced by Taiwanese companies. “This year one in four computers sold will be a notebook,” said MIC analyst Chou Shih Hsiung. “By 2006 we forecast that notebooks will move up to one in three.” Notebook PCs have been gaining on desktop PCs, up from a 20 percent market share in 2001 to 25 percent this year; 33 percent expected for 2005; and 40 percent to 45 percent by the end of this decade, Chou said. The demand for notebook computers is estimated to grow 25.8 percent next year, for a total 47.3 million units worldwide. John Mason is an Electronic News contributing editor. Mason is based in Spain.