Global smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) said yesterday that it is upbeat about its outlook in the second half of this year, expecting sound growth in revenue, profit and shipment figures.
Peter Chou (周永明), chief executive officer of HTC, said at a shareholder meeting that the company will maintain the momentum it built up with its strong growth in the first half of the year.
“If we hadn’t encountered a component shortage, we would have had an even better performance in April and May,” he said.
HTC registered record monthly revenues for two consecutive months in April and last month, which the company attributed to strong market demand for its high-end mobile phones.
Revenue up
In the first five months of the year, the company registered revenue of NT$74.37 billion (US$2.31 billion), up 34 percent from the same period last year.
Despite the large global smartphone market, Chou said HTC was just like a regional team that “accidentally” entered the top four in a world tournament.
Chou, however, said that HTC remains confident about the company’s ability to keep up with its strongest competitors.
According to Canalys, a global research institute that focuses on smartphones, Nokia retained its worldwide smartphone lead during the first quarter this year, with a market share of 38.8 percent.
RIM held onto second place at 19.2 percent, while Apple reached 15.9 percent.
Market share
HTC has a market share of 5.1 percent and Motorola 4.7 percent.
Chou also said that HTC has made significant progress in branding.
According to the company’s internal evaluation index, HTC’s brand awareness was only 10 percent at the end of last year and rose to about 40 percent at present.
It is expected to reach 60 percent by the end of this year, he said.
Meanwhile, at the shareholders meeting, HTC distributed a dividend of NT$26.5 per share for this year — the highest among all listed companies on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The company earned net profits of NT$22.6 billion, or NT$28.71 per share, last year.
Its consolidated revenue was NT$144.5 billion last year, with total cellphone shipments of 11.71 million units and an average price of NT$11,661.
The company also said that 3G wireless products accounted for over 95 percent of its total shipments last year, with a gross profit rate of 31.9 percent.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in