Wintek Corp (勝華), which supplies touch panels to Apple Inc and other electronics makers, yesterday reported record sales for last month, thanks to rising customer demand for its high-margin products.
Sales more than tripled to NT$8.25 billion (US$269 million) last month, compared with NT$2.54 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, that represented about 7.6 percent growth from NT$7.7 billion made in September.
“Growing adoption of touch panels in electronic devices helped increase our shipments, which will have a positive impact on our profits in the fourth quarter,” Wintek spokesman Jay Huang (黃忠傑) said by telephone. “Christmas holiday season demand also helps.”
Huang expected touch panels to account for a bigger share, or 80 percent, of the company’s total revenues this quarter, up from 30 percent in the third quarter.
Wintek expects its revenues to grow 13 percent this quarter to NT$21.52 billion from NT$19.05 billion in the quarter ending on Sept. 30, given ongoing growth -momentum in smartphones and tablet devices, Credit Suisse said in a report dated Oct. 14.
Monthly shipments for tablet computers are expected to expand to 1.2 million or 1.3 million units during the fourth quarter, up from 1 million units per month in the third quarter, Credit Suisse said.
Credit Suisse rated Wintek “out-perform” with the target price of NT$60, a 17.6 percent upside.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last