< The 2016 All-Asia Research Team

Total Appearances: 15

Team Debut: 1999

A runner-up the past several years, Manish Nigam and his Credit Suisse cohort advance to claim the No. 2 ranking. “Manish and his team are global thinkers. They are always forward-looking and insightful,” asserts one fund manager. The eight researchers, who cover some 60 regional hardware companies, have maintained a conservative stance on the sector since last year, “as we believe that the existing consumer technology cycles have peaked and that we are going to have a few years of a gap before we hit upon another consumer tech cycle,” explains Nigam, 45. He highlights several considerations as worth watching over the next 12 months, including: product launches, innovations that could “help kick-start a new cycle”; competitive dynamics and margins, against the backdrop of “soggy” unit growth; and whether personal computers will find a short-term lease on life as a result of consumer and corporate replacement trends and virtual reality–driven PC gaming adoption. Regarding specific names, he says, Credit Suisse recommends that clients prefer “stocks that can still deliver earnings growth in such an environment — either driven by bottom-up execution or through a change in business mix.” Favorites on this theme are Taiwan-headquartered Delta Electronics and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., China’s Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. and Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. of South Korea. The analysts are stationed in Hong Kong — Nigam’s base — Seoul and Taipei. This year he also co-leads, with Randy Abrams, the top team in Semiconductors; with Anantha Narayan, he directs the third-place squad in IT Services & Software.