Largan Precision Co (大立光), the nation's leading maker of camera lenses, posted higher-than-expected quarterly profits yesterday, thanks to surging sales in mobile-phone lenses.
The company's gross profit for the first quarter hit 61 percent, up from 42 percent during the same period a year ago.
Net income rose 356 percent to reach NT$822.25 million (US$25.31 million). Net sales expanded 189 percent to reach NT$1.62 billion for the first three months of the year, according to the company.
Meanwhile, earnings per share were NT$7.17, soaring from last year's NT$1.57.
"We expect the second quarter's momentum will be pretty much the same as the first. We certainly wish for a better second half, which is a traditionally busy period for optical-lens industry," chairman and chief executive Scott Lin (林耀英) told an investors' conference.
Growth uncertain
However, Lin was tight-lipped on projected growth, saying that factors such as yield rates, average selling prices and orders need to be taken into account.
In the first quarter, 80 percent of revenues were generated from handset lenses, while digital-camera lenses accounted for 10 percent.
The Taichung-based company said that multifunctional printer lenses and projector lenses made up 7 percent and 1 percent.
"Largan's first-quarter gross profit was slightly higher than the industry's projection," said Tom Lu (呂文輝), senior vice president of fund management department at Uni-President Asset Management Corp (統一投信).
This dynamic result was attributed to the company's product mix, which was able to ride on market trends, he added.
Though strong growth in the global handset market will continue to benefit camera-lens makers in the next few years, Largan may venture into new segments to secure long-term business sustainability, he said.
Shares of Largan were up NT$0.66 percent to close at NT$612 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of