Pegatron Corp (和碩), a contract manufacturing spinoff of Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), yesterday said it expected revenues in the current quarter to rise about 20 percent from the previous three months amid strong shipments of computing and consumer electronics products.
A seasonal peak in demand should boost shipments in the second half, Pegatron chief financial officer Charles Lin (林秋炭) told reporters.
The company expects shipments of notebooks, which also include netbooks, to grow 10 to 15 percent sequentially in the third quarter, while shipments of motherboards and desktops could expand by a low single digit from the first three months, he said.
Revenues from consumer electronics — especially game consoles and flat-panel TVs — are forecast to double, while those of communications and wireless products could rise by a mid-single digit, he said at an investors’ conference.
Growth could be even stronger next year thanks to its successful spinoff from Asustek in the first half, Pegatron CEO and president Jason Cheng (程建中) said.
“We are moving in the direction of becoming a design manufacturing services provider,” he said.
“After completing the spinoff from Asustek, we are winning new orders. Some are new customers and some are those that left us [due to conflicts of interest before the spinoff, when Asustek supplied both contract and its own brand markets],” Cheng said.
He said Pegatron had seen the results of its vertical integration, allowing it to expand its coverage from production of in-house components to end electronics products.
He brushed off analysts’ concern that Asustek’s move to diversify suppliers would impact on Pegatron’s business performance.
Asustek said last week it would only outsource half of its production, including conventional notebooks and Eee PCs, to Pegatron next year, down from the current 70 percent.
The decline in Asustek orders will be offset by an expanding notebook market next year, as well as orders from new customers, Chen said.
Pegatron yesterday released its first earnings report after the spinoff, with second-quarter net income reaching NT$2.99 billion (US$93.4 million) on revenues of NT$128 billion.
Asked about the Apple Inc kickback case, Cheng told reporters that the investigation was ongoing and he could not comment on the case.
Pegatron’s Chinese subsidiary, Kaedar Electronics Co (凱達), a maker of plastic packages for electronics, is alleged to be one of six Asian suppliers that paid an Apple supply manager in exchange for better contracts from the US company.
Paul Shin Devine, the global supply manager who was indicted by a US federal grand jury in California, has denied the claims.
Pegatron said it had suspended staff suspected of involvement in the case pending an internal investigation.
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