Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s biggest LCD panel maker, yesterday posted better-than-expected net profits, helped by faster integration and recovering demand for TV panels.
Net income nearly tripled to NT$9.54 billion (US$301 million), or NT$1.43 per share, in the second quarter, compared with NT$3.39 billion, or NT$0.87 per share, in the first quarter, according to a company statement.
Gross margin climbed to 12.8 percent last quarter from 10.3 percent in the first quarter.
“The results have greatly exceeded the market’s expectations,” an analyst with Fubon Securities Investment Services Co Ltd (富邦投顧) said. “We are impressed by the company’s integration efficiency, which will help boost profits in the future.”
Most analysts had expected the synergy to happen about a year after the integration of Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) and TPO Display Co (統寶光電) on March 18, he said.
“We have completed the first wave of integrating the three companies by re-locating our Chinese factories in Shenzhen, Ningbo and Nanjing and we are planning to do make structural adjustment,” chief executive Tuan Hsing-Chien (段行建) told an teleconference.
Tuan also said the company hoped to grow its monitor and TV assembling businesses, easing investors’ concern that Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Chimei’s biggest stakeholder, would take over the businesses, as some media have reported.
“The speculation is not correct,” Tuan said.
Chimei has a shipment target of just under 40 million LCD monitors and about 5 million TVs this year, he said.
Given the outlook for the current quarter, Chimei financial executive Eddie Chen (陳彥松) said shipments of PC and TV panels would be flat or fall slightly, compared with last quarter’s 33.89 million units, of which TV panels accounted for 41 percent.
Panel prices could come down by single digit percent, from US$119 per unit because of excess inventories and an increase in panel supply, the company said. In the second quarter, prices increased 4.4 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Chimei plans to invest between NT$80 billion and NT$100 billion on capacity expansion this year.
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
NVIDIA FACTOR: Shipments of AI servers powered by GB300 chips would undergo pilot runs this quarter, with small shipments possibly starting next quarter, it said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which supplies artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp chips, yesterday said that AI servers are on track to account for 70 percent of its total server revenue this year, thanks to improved yield rates and a better learning curve for Nvidia’s GB300 chip-based servers. AI servers accounted for more than 60 percent of its total server revenue in the first half of this year, Quanta chief financial officer Elton Yang (楊俊烈) told an online conference. The company’s latest production learning curve of the AI servers powered by Nvidia’s GB200 chips has improved after overcoming key component
UNPRECEDENTED DEAL: The arrangement which also includes AMD risks invalidating the national security rationale for US export controls, an expert said Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) have agreed to pay 15 percent of their revenue from Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chip sales to the US government in a deal to secure export licenses, an unusual arrangement that might unnerve both US companies and Beijing. Nvidia plans to share 15 percent of the revenue from sales of its H20 AI accelerator in China, a person familiar with the matter said. AMD is to deliver the same share from MI308 revenue, the person added, asking for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The arrangement reflects US President Donald Trump’s consistent effort to engineer
RSS