Shares in the nation's top chipmaker for flat panels Novatek Microelectronics Corp (
American depositary shares of Himax Technologies regained 3.4 percent, or US$0.30, to close at US$9.05 on their second trading day after losing 2.8 percent in its first day of trading on the tech-heavy NASDAQ stock market last Friday.
Himax and its shareholders last week sold 52 million American depository shares at US$9 apiece, completing the biggest technology IPO in Asia this year. Each American depository share represents one ordinary share.
"We had expected Himax' IPO to boost the stock price of its bigger rival Novatek at home as Himax is traded at a higher valuation than Novatek," said Rex Liu (
Liu said that foreign investors would be willing to pay more for stocks with promising outlooks on the US stock markets than on the Taiwanese bourses, which in turn would help those companies raise more funds from selling shares.
That would be a major factor for most local firms such as Himax who are considering listing on the US stock markets, he added.
"Disappointingly, Himax's IPO did not have a positive impact on Novatek," Liu said.
Novatek shares have fallen 2.8 percent in the past two days to end at NT$224 (US$6.9) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, ending a four straight gain ahead of Himax's IPO.
Liu, however, said "the price correction will be short-lived as the prospects for Novatek are bright. Novatek will enjoy decent growth in sales from robust demand for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs this year."
Merrill Lynch analyst Jonah Cheng (程正樺) gave a "buy" rating to Novatek, citing strong demand for LCD-TVs. Cheng upgraded by 30 percent the target price for the stock to NT$260 from his previous NT$200 in mid-February.
Cheng also raised his earnings forecast for Novatek this year to NT$16.4 per share from the NT$15.4 estimated earlier.
Himax, which designs chips mostly for slim screens used in computers and TVs, posted net income of US$61.6 million, up 71 percent from a year ago, according to the company's prospectus.
The company owns about 16 percent of the global market in drivers for TFT-LCD panel displays, according to data published at the investors.com Web site. More than 96 percent of sales last year were in this area, it said.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation's No. 2 maker of flat panels, is Himax's largest customer, providing almost 60 percent of sales. In addition, Chi Mei is also one of the company's largest shareholders, according to investors.com. Following the IPO, Chi Mei owns 12.75 percent in Himax, down from its previous 13.6 percent.
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
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by