Local electronics maker Qisda Corp (佳世達) yesterday posted its smallest quarterly losses in more than a year for the second quarter because of reduced non-operating losses, primarily from its share in local panel maker AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電).
Qisda’s losses narrowed to NT$440 million (US$13.37 million) in the three months ending in June, from losses of NT$2.15 billion in the previous quarter. The company earned NT$579 million in the second quarter of last year.
Qisda’s operating income rose for the third straight quarter to NT$290 million, while non-operating losses amounted NT$630 million mainly due to losses from AUO, which lost NT$6.6 billion last quarter. Qisda holds a 7.6 percent share of AUO.
Following this uptrend, company chief executive Kuma Hsiung (熊暉) expected Qisda to return to the black sometime in the second half of next year.
Giving a short-term outlook, company financial executive David Wang (王淡如) said monitor shipments may be flat in the current quarter, compared with about 4.2 million units in the second quarter.
Average selling price may rise by 4 percent to 6 percent quarter-on-quarter to reflect higher panel costs, Wang said.
PC monitors accounted for a big portion, or more than 80 percent, of Qisda’s overall revenues at NT$19.68 billion in the April to June period.
That represented a 9.2 percent quarter-on-quarter increase, but a 35 percent year-on-year decline as electronics demand slipped on the economic slump.
Shipments of projectors and mobile phones are expected to grow significantly by 30 percent and 150 percent respectively in the current quarter, Wang said.
To spur growth, Qisda is expanding into high-margin niche products including Internet-enabled handheld devices, tailor-made industrial signage and billboards, electronic readers and other products, Hsiung told investors yesterday.
Some of those new products are expected to hit the market in the second half of the year, Hsiung said.
In the first half of this year, Qisda shipped 7 million monitors and 2.2 million projectors.
Gross margin improved to 8 percent in the second quarter, compared to 3.4 percent a year ago and 6.9 percent in the first quarter, after Qisda sold TV manufacturing facilities to AUO.
Qisda shares dropped NT$0.20 or 1.48 percent to NT$13.30 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
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