AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world’s third-largest maker of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels, may post stronger-than-expected earnings for the second half of the year, following rival LG Display Co Ltd’s optimistic forecast for the third quarter, HSBC Securities said in a report.
South Korea-based LG Display’s second-quarter earnings far exceeded HSBC’s estimate.
LG Display’s forecast of a 15 percent quarter-on-quarter increase in shipments this quarter is also more optimistic than HSBC’s projection of 11 percent growth, HSBC analyst Frank Su (蘇穀祥) said in the report, issued last week.
Su said this reaffirmed HSBC’s view that inventory was healthy and recovering demand could boost rebounding panel prices, alleviating key concerns about the industry.
Su said he did not expect LG Display’s new investment in an 8.5-generation plant to cause a supply glut anytime soon as the boost in capacity would only raise the global supply by 2 percent next year.
These positive signals supported “our call that AU Optronics will turn around staring in the third quarter of 2009, with potentially better earnings prospects for the second half [of the year],” Su said.
Benefiting from the recovery, Hsinchu-based AU Optronics is expected to earn NT$8 billion (US$244 million) in the third quarter, he said.
That would end three consecutive quarterly losses since the fourth quarter of last year, when a combination of oversupply and the economic slump took a toll on its business.
For the full year, the company may lose NT$7.95 billion, he said, better than the average forecast of NT$35.53 billion in losses.
Su raised his price-to-book ratio target for AU Optronics from 1.2 times to 1.5 times, raising the target price from NT$42 to NT$52.
The new target price implies an upside of about 38 percent over the next 12 months compared with the stock’s closing price of NT$38.2 last Friday.
Su said he had applied a 20 percent discount to the peak cycle compared with the past few uptrends in the LCD industry, factoring in greater macro-economic uncertainty.
HSBC gave an “overweight” rating for AU Optronics and LG Display, however, and rated Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s No. 2 LCD panel supplier, as “neutral.”
AU Optronics is scheduled to release second-quarter financial results on Thursday. The company may report NT$7.5 billion in losses for last quarter, compared with NT$20.33 billion in the first quarter, Su said.
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
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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