Amtran Technology Co Ltd (瑞軒科技), a major shareholder of US flat-panel TV maker Vizio Inc, has posted record high earnings for last year after reporting the strongest earnings in three years for the last quarter.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Amtran’s net income soared to NT$537 million (US$16.86 million), from NT$240 million a year earlier. That was the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2007, the company said yesterday.
In an e-mailed statement, Amtran attributed the strong performance to the launch of new and high-margin products such as light-emitting diode (LED) TVs and Internet TVs, which offset price cuts in the holiday shopping season, as well as NT$510 million in asset gains in the final quarter of last year.
For the full year, net income totaled NT$2.003 billion, more than doubling from NT$965 million in the previous year, the company said.
Revenue rose 4.5 percent year-on-year to NT$64.04 billion last year from NT$61.31 billion, Amtran said.
The TV maker aimed to sell as many as 2 million LED TVs this year, joining the world’s major TV brands in promoting ultra slim TV sets, it said. The company did not provide last year’s figure for comparison.
That would make LED TVs account for a quarter of its 8 million units of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV shipments, a target Amtran set previously for this year.
The shipment target would be double the 4 million units Amtran shipped last year. The company shipped a large portion of its products to Vizio, in which it holds about a 23 percent stake.
To secure a sufficient supply of the chips used in LED TVs, Amtran has bought a 0.58 percent share of local LED chipmaker Unity Opto Technology Co Ltd (東貝光電) for NT$60.36 million via private placement in December.
With 3D TVs attracting consumer attention since the global success of the 3D movie Avatar, Amtran also plans to add 3D TVs to its product portfolio and to ship the new product to customers in the second half of this year.
DisplaySearch, a market researcher, forecast that shipments of 3D-capable TVs would reach more than 1.2 million units this year and would grow to 15.6 million units in 2013.
Amtran said it was aggressively expanding to markets outside of North America, including Japan, China, India, Central America and other emerging markets.
The TV maker said it had won orders from China’s top three TV makers and hoped to supply TVs to Chinese electronics retailers.
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