Seasonal demand will boost AU Optronics Corp’s (友達光電) revenue growth beyond 25 percent in the third quarter, picking up after bottoming out in the second quarter, the company said yesterday.
The Hsinchu-based firm, the world’s third-biggest manufacturer of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels used in computer monitors and televisions, said demand weakened this quarter because of seasonal factors.
The company dismissed recent concerns that a looming economic recession and rising inflation in the US could hurt demand in the world’s biggest LCD TV market.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“The second quarter is historically a slow season, so it will likely be the lowest point for the year in terms of revenue,” company general manager Chen Lai-juh (陳來助) told reporters.
Chen said AU Optronics had no plans of trimming third-quarter forecast, as the market situation was mostly in line with its expectations.
The company said in April that shipments of monitor and TV panels would grow by less than 10 percent this quarter, while panel prices would remain roughly flat quarter-on-quarter.
In the conventionally slack April-to-June period, AU Optronics’ revenue still grew by about 25 percent last month and 34 percent in April, compared with the same months last year, the company said.
“The expansion will be bigger than that [25 percent] in the second half,” Chen said. “The [market] situation should be quite good in the third quarter, as customers recently started ordering for peak season demand.”
Revenue growth is expected to start accelerating next month and continue through the rest of the third quarter, Chen said.
“We have not seen consumers change their purchasing behavior because of the [weak] macro environment,” he said.
AU Optronics maintained its projection of global TV set sales for this year at 110 million units, Chen said.
He declined to make a forecast for panel price trends, citing poor visibility.
“We are concerned that the economic slowdown in the US may weaken TV sales, though historical data show the impact should not be significant,” said Daniel Wang (王德善), a flat-panel industry analyst at Primasia Securities in Taipei.
Another concern would be that price and market share competition between TV vendors Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co may ultimately drive down TV panel prices later this year, Wang said.
Matching AU Optronics’ comments on the second half, Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) president Ho Jau-yang (何昭陽) said his company was “cautiously optimistic about the third quarter.”
“Overall, this year will be a better period than last year,” Ho said.
In addition, Ho said Chi Mei was evaluating building a post-10th-generation plant in Kaohsiung.
The firm is seeking a plot of land bigger than 100 hectares to house the new plant as well as key component suppliers such as LCD glass makers, he said.
In April, AU Optronics said it was scouting land for a 10th-generation or even more advanced plant to make LCD panels bigger than 50 inches in 2011 or 2012, depending on demand.
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