High Tech shares plunge on slower growth forecast

Shares of High Tech Computer Corp (HTC, 宏達電), the world's largest maker of handsets using Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system, fell after executives said growth may slow and analysts said they may revise their estimates for the company.

Shares of HTC fell by the daily maximum of 7 percent to close at NT$493 (US$15) in Taipei, the lowest close since Dec. 26, 2005.

The cellphone maker expects sales for the first quarter will be "slightly better" than the same period last year, chief financial officer Cheng Hui-ming (鄭慧明) said during a conference call last Friday. The Taoyuan-based company had posted sales growth exceeding 45 percent for 11 of the past 12 quarters.

"We are very disappointed with the first-quarter outlook, which is for sales and earnings to be flat," analyst Dominic Grant at Macquarie Securities Ltd in Taipei wrote in a report released last Saturday.

"We are reviewing our forecast model," said Grant, who has rated the stock "outperform" with a 12-month price target of NT$1,201 since Oct. 31.

High Tech on Jan. 10 reported fourth-quarter sales of NT$29.8 billion (US$907.3 million), 8.2 percent higher than a year earlier and the slowest growth in more than four years. The 47 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit to NT$7.45 billion was the slowest rise since the fourth-quarter of 2003.