Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) and local laptop original design manufacturers yesterday reported lackluster sales figures for last month, citing slowing consumer spending.
Following an emergency downward fourth-quarter guidance issued on Thursday, Asustek posted dismal sales of NT$16.1 billion last month, a 20.3 percent decrease year-on-year and a 35 percent decrease month-on-month.
Moreover, the netbook pioneer’s quarter-on-quarter sales dropped 13.67 percent to NT$67.6 billion (US$486 million) in the fourth quarter which is in line with its Thursday revisions.
The result did not surprise analysts as many have been lowering their earning forecasts in the wake of slowing consumer demand worldwide starting in October.
Credit Suisse cut Asustek’s rating to “underperform” from “neutral” and Morgan Stanley reduced the company’s rating to “underweight” from “equalweight.” Macquarie Group also cut the stock to “underperform,” the foreign financial institutions said.
Despite last month’s disappointing figures, Asustek’s unaudited annual revenue rose 17 percent year-on-year to NT$266.9 billion last year, buoyed by stellar performances in the first three quarters.
Going forward, the company said it will focus on inventory control, business streamlining and currency risk management in order to produce better margins.
As PC vendors worldwide are confronted by weak consumer demand, local original design manufacturers, Pegatron Corp (和聯), Unihan Corp (永碩), Wistron Co (緯創) and Qisda Corp (佳世達) also saw their manufacturing orders sharply reduced in the final month of the year.
Pegatron and Unihan, the former production arms of Asustek, registered declining sales last month, with NT$19.57 billion at Pegatron and NT$8.94 billion at Unihan.
With Asustek focusing on international brand building since last January, Pegatron now oversees PC manufacturing while Unihan is responsible for the production of molds, cover and non-computer electronics.
The companies said yesterday that among their three product lines: motherboard/desktop, notebook and graphic/TV card, notebook business demonstrated the sharpest retraction of 47 percent, while the other two only faced low-single digit reductions.
The two firms’ accumulated full year revenues reached NT$465.73 billion last year.
Meanwhile, Qisda’s sales during last month contracted 14.5 percent month-on-month and 18.6 percent year-on-year to NT$6.89 billion. The company concentrates heavily on the production of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) monitors, commercial LCD TVs and cellphones.
The Taoyuan-based company produces precisely the products that have been hit the hardest in the economic downturn.
The only anomaly in the group, Wistron, saw its sales last moth grow 5.48 percent month-on-month, and 56.27 percent year-on-year to a stunning NT$46.73 billion.
Wistron, which focuses on notebook production, saw its notebook orders shrink from 2.7 million units in October, to 2 million units in November, but somehow delivered a positive performance to the surprise of analysts.
The computer peripheral manufacturer’s full year consolidated revenues grew 55.25 percent from 2007’s NT$286.75 billion to NT$445.17 billion, despite its earlier cuts in fourth quarter shipment forecast figures.
Mike Liang (梁惠明), senior manager of investor relations at Wistron told reporters in October that the company forecast shipments of 25 million to 28 million units of notebooks this year.
Prompted by Thursday’s earnings revisions, Asustek shares traded down limit to NT$33.4 yesterday. Their stock fell 57.05 percent last year compared to the benchmark TAIEX index’s full year decline of 46 percent.
Wistron and Qisda also traded down yesterday to NT$25.60 and NT$6.36. The stocks were respectively down 58.71 percent and 80.27 percent on last year.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS