HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s largest maker of handsets running on Microsoft Corp’s system, yesterday said that revenues were likely to be flat this quarter amid slowing global demand. However, the company retained its target of double-digit growth in revenue for the full year, aided by new product releases.
Revenues could reach NT$33 billion (US$978 million) this quarter, HTC said, representing an increase of less than 1 percent from NT$32.7 billion in the first quarter of last year, or a drop of about 30 percent from NT$47.4 billion last quarter.
HTC’s guidance is slightly lower than Macquarie Securities’ forecast of NT$35 billion.
Demand for handsets — by HTC and other makers — may weaken this quarter, as handset channel and telecom operators aggressively digest their inventory, HTC chief executive Peter Chou (周永明) told investors.
Chou said the first quarter could be the worst period for handset makers, but he believed that HTC would see business rebound in the second quarter, helped by the introduction of more new products and growing demand for touch-screen smartphones.
“Sales growth can be expected to pick up quarter on quarter from a low in the first quarter,” Chou said.
Chou reiterated the company’s goal of double-digit growth in revenues this year from the NT$152.6 billion it generated last year.
The company plans to launch more Android-based mobile phones this year after shipping the first batch of such phones last year to US wireless operator AT&T, he said.
“Our strategy for this difficult year revolves around the HTC brand experience. We will speed up new product releases, as well as release more models in order to tap into a discerning customer base worldwide by offering them simplified yet differentiating devices for various needs,” Chou said.
He did not elaborate on the company’s product roadmap.
HTC may roll out 20 new models this year with diversified features, Macquarie said in a report released in the middle of last month.
Operating gross margin may be flat at 30 percent this quarter, compared with 30.1 percent last quarter, HTC said.
But the gross margin may improve quarter on quarter this year, ending the downtrend last year, Chou said.
At its board meeting later this month, the company also plans to propose distributing high annual cash dividends of NT$20 billion this year and next 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