Taiwan Computing

choi

(1) Ian King, Tim Culpan and Adam Satariano, Apple, Qualcomm Bids Spurned for Exclusive TSMC Supplies. Bloomberg, Aug 29, 2012.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/20 ... mc-chip-supply.html
("Both proposals [from Apple and Qualcomm] included investments, each of more than $1 billion, for the world’s largest custom maker of chips to set aside production dedicated to making chips exclusively for them")

My comment: What is implied is Apple and TSMC has indeed talked behind closed door to explore chip outsourcing to the latter (in whole or in part). Samsung foundry would be devastated if it were to lose Apple.

(2) Latest first.
(a) Today Asus releases 2Q12 quarterly report.

Investor Realtions. Asus, Aug 29, 2012.
http://www.corpasia.net/taiwan/2357/irwebsite/
("2012 Q2 Investor Conference" in Mandarin or in English)
(i) Jeffrey Wu, Asustek Raises 2012 Tablet Target on Nexus 7 Demand. CNA, Aug 29, 2012.
http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/W ... amp;ID=201208290031

summary: Asus sold 600,000 and 800,000 tablet PCs in 1Q12 and 2Q12 respectively. On June 27, Google and Asustek unveiled--and started accepting pre-order of--the Nexus 7 which did not go on sale until July. Though neither Google nor Asus has released sale figure for Nexus 7, now Asus says it expects to ship 5 million tablets this year.
(ii) Sarah Mishkin, Asus: Over-Confident?  Financial Times, Aug 29, 2012 (blog)
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/08/29/asus-over-confident/
(For 2Q12: "Asus reported sales up 31 per cent year on year to NT$94.2bn ($3.1bn), with operating margins up 28 per cent year on year to 5.5 per cent")
(b) Nvidia Lands Orders for at Least 3 Million Tegra 3 Chips for Nexus 7. DigiTimes, Aug 3, 2012.
digitimes.com:8080/news/a20120803PD204.html
(at $25 a piece; translated into revenue of $75 million and profit of $10 million)

The text is no longer available, unless one pays.

(3) Daisuke Wakabayashi, Hon Hai Chairman Gou’s Busy Summer Vacation to Japan. Japan Real Time Report, Aug 28, 2012.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealti ... -vacation-to-japan/
("On Tuesday afternoon [Aug 28], reporters crowded around Mr Gou at NEC’s headquarters in Tokyo where he told them about the patent agreement [Foxconn to buy some of NEC's liquid crystal display patents]— much to the surprise of NEC’s public relations staff who weren’t prepared to make an announcement")