Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), the nation's third-largest liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker, swung into profits last quarter on the back of higher panel prices, a company executive said yesterday.
The company posted a second-quarter net income of NT$504 million (US$15.4 million), the first quarterly profits since the fourth quarter in 2005.
This compares to a net loss of NT$5.78 billion in the second quarter last year and NT$3.07 billion in the first three months.
Sales rose 35.5 percent from a year earlier to NT$37.6 billion in the second quarter, while gross margins jumped to 10.6 percent from 6.8 percent.
"We see that demand will exceed supply for small and medium screens during the second quarter, especially for products like portable DVD players, digital photo frames and global positioning systems," company chairman Lin Wei-shan (林蔚山) told investors.
Chunghwa Picture forecast it would post a profit this year, compared with a record loss last year, because of higher panel prices.
"Our profitability has improved every month since we started to turn profitable in May," Lin said.
Chunghwa Picture hopes to generate NT$2 billion in profits per month by the end of this year, Lin said.
Bigger South Korean rival LG Philips LCD Co earlier this month reported its first quarter profit in five quarters.
The average price of an LCD panel measuring at least 10 inches diagonally rose 11 percent to US$133 in the second quarter, from US$120 in the first quarter, Taoyuan-based Chunghwa Picture said.
Prices may rise as much as 5 percent in the current quarter, chief financial officer James Wu (
Shipments of large panels rose 11.4 percent to 6.9 million units, according to its statistics.
"Chunghwa Picture showed impressive performance in rescuing profitability," said Eric Lin (
It made a smart bet by pursuing small and medium-sized panels, as red hot demand in the sector seems likely to continue throughout next year, he said.
But Chunghwa Picture should only manage to totally offset the first-quarter loss in the third quarter, lagging behind its smaller rival HannStar Display Corp (
Chunghwa Picture said its performance in the third-quarter should be very positive.
Total sales should rise 10 percent over the second quarter, while gross margins of panels should hit as much as 20 percent, it said.
Shipments of small and medium screens should grow 23 percent sequentially to 17.3 million units, according to the company's vice president, Lin Sheng-chang (林盛昌).
"They will continue to grow stably in the near future," he said.
The company's capital spending is NT$12.8 billion, down from last year's NT$18.2 billion.
The company said it was looking for partners, especially from the upstream supply chain, to invest in next-generation fabs, but no plans have been finalized.
Shares of Chunghwa Picture were up 1.4 percent to close at NT$9.38 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BLOOMBERG
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last