AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world's No.3 maker of flat panels for computers and TVs, yesterday announced a restructuring plan aimed at boosting its operational efficiency.
"We believe the organizational restructuring will strengthen AU Optronics' abilities to cope with [increasingly stiff] competition in the future," president Chen Hsuen-bin (陳炫彬) said in a conference call yesterday.
AU Optronics will streamline its major business units from four to two -- computer displays and consumer-electronics displays primarily for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs and mobile phones.
The company will also set up a five-member board of management, led by chairman Lee Kun-yao (李焜耀), which will be in charge of formulating the company's strategies, Chen said.
The restructuring will take effect on Dec. 1, he said.
"AU Optronics' restructuring will allow it to better serve the needs of customers in these two distinctive market segments," Chen said, adding that the company will only invest in products and technologies catering to market demand.
The restructuring announcement was greeted lukewarmly by foreign investors and researchers.
"We need more time to monitor what impact the fine-tuning of the organization will have on AU Optronics' operation," said Wang Wanli (
Eric Lin (林宜正), an analyst with Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (元大京華證券), said he had a "neutral view on the restructuring."
He said he did not expect the change would boost AU Optronics' pricing power, or help it lower costs within the next four quarters.
To survive the highly cyclical industry, LCD panel makers are adopting different strategies to enhance their competitiveness, including buying a TV brand.
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), the nation's third-largest LCD screen maker, chose to join forces with a Chinese LCD vendor, Xiamen Overseas Chinese Electronic Co (廈華電子), to get a bigger share of China's TV market, which is dominated by Chinese brands.
Chunghwa Picture's board gave the go-ahead yesterday to a proposal to purchase as many as a 36-percent stake in the Xiamen Overseas Chinese Electronic, the company said in a statement, without giving details.
Xiamen Overseas Chinese Electronic is the second-largest LCD TV vendor in China with a 7.2 percent of market share last quarter, according to DisplaySearch.
"Chunghwa Picture is eyeing China's potential growth in the LCD TV market, and Xiamen Overseas Chinese Electronic will get a stable LCD panel supply from Chunghwa Picture," said Sophia Tsao (
LCD TV sales in China will jump to 1.2 million units this year, a big proportion of the world's some 23 million units, DisplaySearch said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San