Wellypower Optronics Corp (
Wellypower plans to float 11.76 million new shares at NT$63 a share on the nation's over-the-counter Gretai Securities Market next Wednesday. The company currently has 119.51 million shares outstanding.
"We will use the proceeds to expand our production lines in Taiwan and China," said Tony Chang (
Chang told investors that Wellypower plans to spend around NT$1 billion next year on new equipment and facilities in Taiwan and Suzhou, China.
Wellypower, originally a florescent light-manufacturing joint venture between Taiwan's China Electric Mfg Corp (中國電器) and Tokyo-based Elevam Corp, now focuses on making lamps for thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display (TFT-LCD) panels. It has a 10-percent share of the global market.
AU Optronics Corp (
With the expansion plans, Wellypower expects monthly output to more than double to 18 million units by the end of next year, from the current 8.5 million units.
"The expansion aims to catch up to our customers' fast-growing demand for cold cathode fluorescent lamps [CCFL], mostly for LCD TV panels," said Wellypower chairman Chen Hsuen-bin (
Chen is also president of AU Optronics.
Chen said production cannot meet customers' needs and tight supply will continue next year.
Wellypower now supplies lamps to almost all of Taiwan's flat panel makers, except Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (
A mainstay 32-inch LCD TV panel consumes 16 lamps, compared with the four lamps a 17-inch LCD computer panel needs. Wellypower, which mainly produces lamps used in LCD computer panels, started making longer lamps for LCD TVs in October.
"We believe 2006 will be a year of explosive growth for Wellypower in light of the thriving LCD TV market," Chen said.
Wellypower said pre-tax profits doubled to NT$265 million in the first half of this year from a year ago, on higher sales of NT$2 billion. Earnings per share also rose to NT$2.05.
In light of the robust demand, Wellypower will more than double its earnings to NT$644 million this year and NT$1.23 billion next year, from NT$265 million last year, according to Honda Chou (
EPS is expected to jump to NT$5.4 this year and to NT$10.32 next year, from NT$3.04 last year, Chou said.
The upbeat outlook will boost Wellypower's stock price, he said.
“I wouldn't be surprised if the stock shoots up to NT$100 on the first
trading session,” Chou said.
Trading of Wellypower shares will not be limited by the daily 7 percent
ceiling for the first five trading sessions.
Chou rates Wellypower as “Overweight,” with a 12 month target price of
NT$130, representing 106 percent upside from the IPO price of NT$63.
Wellypower shares were trading at an average of NT$129 yesterday on the
nation's grey market.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts