NB代工廠 第3季出貨保守

2011/07/09 13:31 中央社

（中央社記者韓婷婷台北2011年7月9日電)筆記型電腦(NB)代工廠普遍預期今年第3季傳統旺季效應不如以往，大多以10%上下的季成長幅度保守看待，各大廠商陸續將資源轉向非NB產品衝刺，降低NB成長趨緩衝擊。

NB代工廠6月份NB出貨量普遍見到成長，廠商預估7月持平看待，8月為關鍵月份，如果8月沒見到較顯著力道，今年下半年只能「平淡」看待。

展望第3季，廣達 (2382) 表示，第3季NB出貨量維持原先預估的5%到10%的季成長目標。第4季也可維持5%到10%左右的季成長。

廣達表示，第3及第4季如果有5%的季增率，全年NB出貨量就可達到5800萬台，達到1成年增率目標沒問題。優於研究單位預估產業3%到5%成長幅度。

和碩 (4938) 6月份合併營收大幅攀升到新台幣456.4億元，創下2009年10月 (一年半) 以來新高紀錄，年增率也有44%。第2季營收季成長達到24%，優於4月底法說預估的2位數成長。

展望第3季，和碩發言人林秋炭表示，新的專案成效逐步顯現，部份新產品及新客戶從6月份開始出貨，7月陸續量產，應可維持成長態勢，第2季整體營收預估數還未出來，不過在新產品及新客戶加入推動下，應可見到較佳的成績。

林秋炭表示，第3季目前看來包括遊戲機、電子書、電視等消費性電子表現看來不錯。通訊產品(含手機及網通)出貨狀況比原先預期好。

緯創 (3231) 6月合併營收582.79億元，年增3.74%，月增達11.76%，其中筆記型電腦(NB)出貨量280萬台，較5月的245萬台成長14.28%。

緯創表示，第3季NB出貨量維持原先預期，較第2季成長10%以上，其他除了電視外，相較第2季則呈現小幅度成長，整體下半年在穩定中求成長。

英業達 (2356) 受惠於惠普(HP)平板電腦TouchPad開始量產出貨，展望第3季，英業達表示，目前看來下半年筆記型電腦出貨可以比上半年更佳。

仁寶 (2324) 預估在平板電腦出貨帶動下，日前預估第3 季可望有10%到15%的成長目標，唯隨著大客戶宏碁 (2353) 營運未見明顯回溫，目標能否達成仍需進一步觀察。

Hong Kong Investors To Pay Tax

JULY 4, 2011   THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By JEFFREY NG

HONG KONG—The Hong Kong government said individual shareholders of H-share stocks, or Hong Kong-listed companies incorporated in China, will be subject to a withholding tax of 10% on the companies' dividend payments.

The tax is imposed by mainland Chinese authorities.

The government's statement, issued Monday, followed a reply it received from China's State Administration of Taxation clarifying arrangementsconcerning individual investors in Hong Kong.

Some H-share companies had been unclear as to what tax rate to apply, and some, such as Air China Ltd., decided to withhold 20% of dividend payments, in line with Chinese rules that dividends received by domestic investors from mainland Chinese companies are subject to 20% tax, pending clarification from authorities.

Individual investors of China-incorporated stocks listed in Hong Kong had previously been exempt from paying withholding tax in China, though the arrangement was canceled this year. Meanwhile, The 10% withholding tax rate for corporate owners of shares is unchanged.

The government also said that the withholding tax rate may be different for individual shareholders of Hong Kong-traded H shares who aren't residents of the city.

"For shareholders who are residents of other countries and whose home countries have reached an agreement with China on an applicable withholding tax rate higher or lower than 10%, they have to follow the bilateral tax agreement in paying tax in connection with dividends paid by mainland companies listed in Hong Kong," the government said.

Write to Jeffrey Ng at jeffrey.ng@dowjones.com

Samsung Sees Tough Second Half for Components

JULY 3, 2011   THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By JUNG-AH LEE And EVAN RAMSTAD

SEOUL—The Samsung Electronics Co. executive who will lead its newly merged component-manufacturing businesses said that the second half of the year is going to more difficult than the first.

The two businesses—producing semiconductors and flat-panel displays—last year provided 70% of Samsung's operating profit, but both are experiencing difficulties, said Kwon Oh-hyun. The chief of Samsung's chip business, he was tapped to lead the combined unit, to be called its Device Solutions business.

"In the past, the semiconductor market tended to be weaker in the first half and stronger in the second half, but for this year, it is likely to remain flat throughout the latter half," Mr. Kwon said in remarks to Korean reporters that were later confirmed by a company spokeswoman.

The flat-panel business, meanwhile, is going through a protracted cyclical downturn, he said. The business experienced an operating loss in the first quarter and analysts believe it did again in the second quarter, which ended last Thursday.

Samsung will provide guidance on second-quarter results later this week and release a full report in late July. The company faces a tough comparison. Its second-quarter operating last year was a record 5.01 trillion won ($4.7 billion). Analysts expect the number to be down to around 4 trillion won for the just-ended period.

The second half of a year is typically strong for technology companies; with the resumption of school and then the year-end holidays, sales tend to pick up for electronic gadgets, and so for their components. Since the second half of last year, however, memory-chip prices have been steadily falling due to a supply glut.

Mr. Kwon's comments came a month after the chief financial officer of Hynix Semiconductor Inc., another major maker of memory chips, said second-quarter operating profit was likely to fall slightly short of forecasts.

Most of Samsung's flat-panel production is of liquid crystal displays, or LCDs, which have been in a downturn since the middle of last year as new factory starts have created more capacity. The scheduled opening of even more LCD factories in China next year, coupled with continuing weakness in the global economy that has damped demand for TVs, is expected to continue weighing down flat-panel manufacturers.

Combining the chip and LCD businesses positions Samsung, the world's largest technology manufacturer by revenue, to address a larger structural issue that executives rarely discuss: that the customers of its component businesses compete with the other divisions of Samsung, which make cellphones, TVs, computers and other consumer-electronics gadgets.

View Full Image

Maurice Tsai/Bloomberg News

Mr. Kwon in 2009

The strain recently became visible in relations with the biggest customer of its component divisions, Apple Inc., which in April sued Samsung alleging that its cellphone operation copied designs of Apple's products.

Samsung countersued in the U.S. and five other countries. On Thursday, it dropped the first countersuit, filed in the same California district court where Apple filed its initial suit, after a judge recommended that Samsung use that original Apple suit to make its case. In its filing dropping the countersuit, Samsung cited "judicial and administrative efficiency" and an intention to "raise patent infringement" as part of its defense.

—Ian Sherr in San Francisco contributed to this article.

Write to Evan Ramstad at evan.ramstad@wsj.com

Brent-WTI Spread Should Narrow Further

JULY 1, 2011   THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By ANDREW PEAPLE

How much oil costs is key to the global economy, but which is the right price?

The discrepancy between two of the world's major benchmarks, West Texas Intermediate and Brent, has gone beyond a joke. Historically, higher quality WTI traded at a small premium to Brent, but that pattern has sharply reversed in 2011. Brent's premium to WTI widened to $20 per barrel earlier this month, and is still very high at $17.9. The spread could narrow further as market anomalies get ironed out. But confidence in WTI as a key global oil price marker is eroding.

WTI's relative weakness stems from a bottleneck at Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for WTI futures contracts. Plenty of oil is flowing in, particularly from Canada's new oil sands fields to the north. The problem is pipelines mostly aren't set up so that oil can then flow further south to the Gulf of Mexico Coast. The resulting glut is depressing WTI prices relative to Brent, which has been pushed up by losses of Libyan oil, and more recently from the North Sea and Nigeria.

Still, though the Brent premium has narrowed since the International Energy Agency decided to release oil stocks last week, the spread looks excessive. Referencing a further oil price, Louisiana Light Sweet crude, shows why. LLS and Brent are ready substitutes for each other, as both can be transported to customers by sea. But LLS's normal premium to Brent, thanks to its higher quality, has recently reversed: Brent is now around $4 more expensive, compared with an average discount to LLS this year of $2.

In turn, LLS's premium over WTI is still high, at around $14. In theory, that spread should reflect the cost of transporting Cushing's excess oil to the Gulf of Mexico, which Commerzbank estimates could be around $10 per barrel. Add the $4 discrepancy in LLS-WTI pricing to the $6 potential anomaly in LLS-Brent prices, and the Brent to WTI premium of around $18 could be more than halved.

But full elimination of the spread will require some relief for Cushing's supply-glut issues. That won't happen meaningfully until 2013, when a new oil pipeline direct from Canada to the Gulf Coast, bypassing Cushing, is expected to open. Cushing's problems mean that whatever the spread between WTI and Brent, confidence in the former as a global oil benchmark is declining. The IEA, for example, has switched to using Brent as its reference point for prices, saying Brent is more representative of market fundamentals. That should hold true until WTI's little local difficulty is resolved.

Write to Andrew Peaple at andrew.peaple@dowjones.com

An Emerging Opportunity in Stocks

JULY 1, 2011    THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By RICHARD BARLEY

Emerging-market equity investors had a tough time in the first half of 2011. But will the second half offer richer pickings?

The MSCI Emerging Markets index is down 0.4% so far this year, underperforming the developed-market MSCI World index which is up 4.0%. Middle Eastern stocks have been hit by regional political turmoil, Eastern Europe has been affected by the euro-zone crisis, and Latin American and Asian stocks have suffered as inflation and growth fears combined. In contrast, developed market equities initially rallied on hopes for U.S. growth and have suffered less even amid rising risk aversion.

But that is creating opportunities: all four of the BRIC markets are trading cheap to their five-year average valuations, according to HSBC Global Asset Management: China, for example, trades at 10.7 times 2011 earnings versus a five-year average of 13.5 while Russia trades at 5.9 times 2011 earnings versus a long-term average of 8.2.

Much of the case for emerging market equities remains intact. Growth is still expected to be strong: the IMF looks for emerging-market growth to average 6.6% over the next five years versus 2.5% for advanced economies, while inflation should decline.

Emerging economies are close to balanced budgets and debt-to-GDP should decline. Rising consumer wealth and deepening financial markets should support asset prices. U.S. monetary policy is set to stay loose, providing liquidity support.

Meanwhile, some concerns holding back valuations are now receding. In India and China, for example, central banks may now be close to the end of rate-hike cycles even if some smaller economies, such as Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa, are lagging. And while stocks have fared poorly, emerging fixed-income and currencies have done well, suggesting investors have simply been changing the way they take exposure.

Risk appetite remains key: emerging markets still can't decouple from global markets. Renewed euro-zone tensions or continued growth fears could lead to safe-haven flows into the U.S. dollar, denting returns. But if the soft patch proves to be just that, then emerging market stocks could shine later this year.

Write to Richard Barley at richard.barley@dowjones.com

Long and Winding Road for Electric Vehicles

JULY 2, 2011   THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By LIAM DENNING

Electric cars can draw their power from natural gas, coal, wind or even the sun. But their economics are purely nuclear.

View Full Image

Nuclear power stations are relatively cheap to run, but enormously expensive to build. To commit to that, you need either very cheap financing—preferably subsidized—or clairvoyance on long-term electricity prices. The same goes for electric cars.

In a forthcoming report, the Boston Consulting Group estimates that even though costs should fall by 64% between 2009 and 2020, a typical 20 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery for a pure electric vehicle will still set you back almost $10,000 in today's money by the end of that period. So while your futuristic ride will run on lower cost electricity versus presumably expensive gasoline, the upfront outlay could negate this benefit.

Compounding this, BCG foresees manufacturers breathing new life into vehicles using traditional internal combustion engines, spurred on by tightening tailpipe emissions standards. Tweaks range from sleeker chassis reducing drag to lighter materials and better engines. Getting a typical compact car to 47 miles per gallon, or MPG, under this scenario, could cost just $2,000 extra per vehicle. Current average fuel economy is about 26 MPG.

Reuters

Above, a 2011 Chevrolet Vol.

That could be a powerful headwind not just for battery-powered vehicles, but also hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles such as General Motors' Chevrolet Volt. Under BCG's scenario for tailpipe emissions reductions, the extra cost involved with a hybrid vehicle compared to current combustion engine vehicles could amount to $5,000 in today's money by 2020, about half the extra cost of a battery-only vehicle. Plug-in costs would lie somewhere in between.

So how many years would it take for a typical driver to make back the extra outlay for different technologies with fuel savings?

Assume a driver travels 14,000 miles per year. The advanced internal combustion engine gets 47 miles per gallon. The hybrid and, during the 20% of the time it runs on its gasoline engine, the plug-in hybrid both get 79 miles per gallon. That assumes they maintain their efficiency advantage relative to our new and improved traditional engine. The all-electric vehicle, meanwhile, and the plug-in's electric motor get four miles per kWh.

Assume also that annual maintenance costs range from $400 for the vehicle with the internal combustion engine down to $200 for the pure electric vehicle, which has fewer moving parts. In addition, discount annual cash outlays at 5%, in line with vehicle financing costs.

The key input is energy. At long-term prices of $4.50 for a gallon of gasoline and 11 cents per kWh, it takes just under six years for the hybrid vehicle to be more cost effective than the one with the advanced internal combustion engine. The plug-in's payback period is seven years; the electric vehicle about eight years. That's a long time in car years; beyond the expiry of a typical lease.

Higher gasoline prices shift things in the electric car's favor: At $6 gasoline, it pays off in less than six years. That's still pretty long and also doesn't factor in any costs for, say, installing a charger in your garage.

For electric vehicles to make serious headway, they will need much higher fuel prices or taxes, faster reduction in technology costs, or continuing big subsidies. The latter looks unlikely to prove sustainable in the U.S., which is why, in line with BCG's thinking, China and Europe— where regulatory incentives are more widespread than the U.S.—could be more receptive markets. What millions of Chinese driving gasoline-free vehicles will do to the oil price that underpins the electric vehicle's economics is another matter.

煤礦要改月訂價 鋼市震撼

2011.07.05   【經濟日報╱記者林政鋒／高雄報導】

全球重要煤礦商試圖從7月起，將季訂價改為月訂價，引起包括中鋼在內的亞洲鋼廠全面抗拒；鋼界認為，一但改成月度訂價，恐使鋼鐵市場的價格、產銷更為混亂，將嚴重衝擊鋼鐵市場。

國內鋼鐵業龍頭廠中鋼董事長鄒若齊就對此深感不安，認為將導致鋼鐵市場更不穩定。 他昨（4）日說，談判正在進行中，具高度影響力的煤商「輕聲細語說著有決心的話」。透露出亞洲大鋼廠似處於相對弱勢。

中鋼業務副總經理劉季剛說，現階段煤礦商與日本為首的鋼廠正談判中，從經驗法則判斷，如果有結論，包括中鋼與南韓鋼廠只能遵從談判結果。

鄒若齊指出，煤礦交易已從年度合約改為季訂價，煉鋼成本每季都有變動，原料價格能見度低，不確定性大幅增高，從上游到下游整個產業鏈都受波及。

鋼鐵分析師說，近十年來全球煤鐵需求大量提高，煤鐵礦交易也從年約改為季約。其中鐵礦交易有公式可循，也就是依前三個月的現貨價格取其數學平均，做為下季合約價格。

例如7月起第三季的鐵礦砂價格，就是取3月、4月、5月等三個月的現貨平均值，但煤礦中煉鋼用的冶金煤原料供應集中度高，沒有價格公式，仍依談判定價，一季一價。

分析師指出，煤礦商現階段表達一半的數量用月定價、一半季訂價，並釋出價格誘因「促銷」，月定價會比季訂價便宜一些，不過業內人士都認為「這些都是緩兵之計」，最終還是會朝月定價的方向走。

劉季剛表示，國際鋼價的變動，與原物料行情的起伏並非一致，用鋼產業盼望的是穩定的成本結構，一旦原料每個月都有起伏，鋼鐵成本、價格將更難掌握。