Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s largest contract notebook maker, posted record profit growth of 204 percent year-on-year to NT$8.52 billion (US$270.1 million) in the first quarter as demand rebounded after the global economic downturn.
Earnings per share (EPS) in the first three months were NT$2.05, compared with NT$0.73 in the first quarter last year.
That outperformed Wistron Corp’s (緯創) NT$1.45 EPS and Quanta Computer Inc’s (廣達) NT$1.41 EPS.
“Revenue in the first three months jumped 98 percent from a year earlier to NT$216.65 billion,” Compal president and chief executive Ray Chen (陳瑞聰) told an investor conference yesterday.
The company’s board approved a proposal earlier yesterday to pay a cash dividend of NT$2.40 per share and a scrip dividend of two shares for every 100 held.
Gross margin, however, dropped to 4.2 percent in the first quarter, down 0.8 percentage points from 5 percent a year earlier. It is forecast to decline to 4 percent in the second quarter.
Compal shipped 12.5 million notebooks in the first quarter and 13 million in the previous period, surpassing Quanta’s shipments of 11 million and 11.4 million units respectively.
Chen said, however, that a shortage of graphics and DRAM chips, as well as a labor crunch on the eastern coast of China, would have an impact on shipment growth in the second quarter.
“Shipments of laptop computers in the second quarter are expected to remain flat, but they are forecast to rise between 5 percent and 10 percent in the third quarter from the previous quarter,” Chen said. “Although the impact [of a component shortage] will likely last until the end of this year, we have everything under control.”
Despite the arrival of new player Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) in the notebook manufacturing sector, Chen said he was confident Compal would maintain its global market share of 25 percent this year and next year.
“However, we expect the ‘H’ company will take between 8 percent and 10 percent of the market next year,” he said.
The company said Apple Inc’s iPad and other tablet computers would have a small impact on the netbook market this year, adding that the new devices could instead eat up some market share from the iPod and e-readers.
Amid fierce competition, Chen said the company would take advantage of its subsidiary Vibo Telecom Inc’s (威寶電信) communications know-how and integrate its technologies into its computers to increase market differentiation.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by