Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (
Chi Mei Optoelectronics, Taiwan's biggest maker of TV flat panels, posted quarterly earnings of NT$8.33 billion (US$255 million), or NT$1.7 per share, for the October-December period of last year.
That also reversed a loss of some NT$3.51 billion amid severe oversupply in the final quarter of 2004.
The gross margin for the fourth quarter jumped to almost 25 percent, outpacing all competitors including the world's biggest player LG Philips LCD Co of South Korea.
The company expected that sustained demand from slim-screen TVs would partly offset weak computer demand in the traditionally slack January-March quarter.
"We are confident in the TV market. The unit sales of our TV panels will grow by another 10 percent to reach 2.2 million units this quarter from last quarter," president Ho Jau-yang (
The optimism also reflected the company's aggressive capital spending of NT$100 billion for this year, up 67 percent from NT$61 billion spent last year.
The company aims to repeat last quarter's sales of 7.4 million units in the first three months of this year, Ho said.
But the profitability may trend lower in the current quarter as the price would fall slightly due to seasonal factors, Ho said, echoing LG Philips LCD, which forecast a 5-percent drop.
The panel price jumped 13 percent to average US$219 per unit in the final quarter of last year from US$193 a year earlier, according to Chi Mei Optoelectronics' statistics.
Frank Lee (
"Taiwanese flat-panel makers have stronger competitiveness in the TV panel area. Besides, they sold more 32-inch panels than their Korean rivals, which are busy developing bigger-sized panels," Lee said.
The TV business made up almost half of Chi Mei Optoelectronics' total revenues in the final quarter of last year, up from some 35 percent a year ago.
Lee said Chi Mei Optoelectronics' fourth-quarter results largely matched his expectation.
Lee gave a "buy" rating on Chi Mei Optoelectronics with a 12-month target price of NT$68. That implies a 33-percent upside from Chi Mei Optoelectronics' closing price of NT$51.1 yesterday.
For the full year last year, Chi Mei Optoelectronics' net income plunged over 53 percent to NT$8.03 billion, the company said in a statement.
Revenues, however, leapt nearly 50 percent to NT$152.85 billion year-on-year, the company said in a statement released earlier.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics also announced yesterday that it had signed an agreement with Sharp Corp to share several thousand patents related to manufacturing panels for LCD TVs and computers in a bid to expand their customer base.
"The deal will help us lure more customers from Japan, where Chi Mei Optoelectronics has a weaker customer base," Hsu Chun-hwa (
Under the agreement, the two companies will not file patent infringement lawsuits against each other and their customers for a five-year period.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure