Falling TV panel prices and the strengthening New Taiwan dollar have hit major Taiwanese flat-panel makers, resulting in lower sales last month and the last quarter, according to the latest company figures released last week.
While signs of a pick up in panel demand started to emerge last month, AU Optronics Corp’s (友達光電) consolidated sales last month dropped 16.95 percent from November, Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) saw its sales fall 8.77 percent and those of HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) were 2.29 percent lower than a month earlier.
“The decrease in the December revenue was associated with the lower-than-expected TV panel prices, customer inventory control by the end of the year and the currency influence of NT dollar appreciation,” AU Optronics, the nation’s second-largest LCD panel maker, said in a statement on Friday.
PHOTO: CHEN MEI-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Speaking to reporters at a tree-planting ceremony on Saturday at the company’s Houli plant in Greater Taichung, AU Optronics chairman Lee Kun-yao (李焜耀) said he had seen signs of “pull-in orders” to meet demand for the Lunar New Year, but was less certain about the price outlook, local cable TV network UBN quoted him as saying.
Last week, Citigroup analyst Jonathan Rhee said in a report that IT panel customers might start restocking given limited room for further price drops, but TV panel prices could continue to fall in the short term, although at a slower rate.
“Going forward, we expect recovery in demand ahead of Chinese New Year and rebounding IT panel price shifting capacity away from TV to IT panel production to be positive factors in panel price -stabilization,” Rhee said on Thursday.
Taiwanese panel makers also face a critical test in their ability to hedge against foreign exchange losses this year, as the New Taiwan dollar closed at NT$29.80 against the US dollar on Friday, a level not seen since Oct. 20, 1997.
Lee said on Saturday a fast appreciation in the value of the New Taiwan dollar posed a threat to Taiwan’s panel makers, especially in the face of strong competition from their South Korean rivals.
Moreover, a sharp depreciation in the South Korean won against the US dollar because of the standoff on the Korea Peninsula has led to an appreciation in the New Taiwan dollar against the South Korean currency, putting more pressure on Taiwanese firms, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) quoted him as saying.
The local currency has risen 4.88 percent against the greenback since October and has appreciated 3.65 percent against the won over the same period, the central bank’s data showed.
Last month, AU Optronics posted NT$30.62 billion (US$1.03 billion) in sales, its lowest since June 2008 when it reported NT$30.4 billion in sales. The figure was not only 16.95 percent lower than the previous month, but also 16.87 percent less than a year earlier, the company’s data showed.
In the October to December period, the Hsinchu-based company saw its revenue fall 17.51 percent to NT$102.62 billion from the previous three months, 10.66 percent less than a year ago. For the whole of last year, however, revenue expanded 30.01 percent to NT$467.17 billion from 2009.
AU Optronics did not provide a sales forecast for this quarter or this year, but it expects demand to recover gradually.
“As sell-through picked up during the holiday period and the customer inventory adjustments have gradually come to an end, we expect that panel demand will progressively recover,” the company said in the statement.
Also on Friday, HannStar Display said its sales dropped 2.24 percent to NT$3.4 billion month-on-month and fell 26.94 percent year-on-year. In the last three months, revenue totaled NT$10.21 billion, down 20.34 percent from the previous three months and 27.39 percent lower than a year ago, the company’s data showed.
On Thursday, the nation’s No. 3 panel maker Chunghwa Picture posted NT$5.25 billion in sales last month, down 8.77 percent month-on-month and 13.38 percent year-on-year. On a quarterly basis, fourth-quarter revenue of NT$16.6 billion was 14.46 percent lower than the third quarter and fell 3.31 percent from a year earlier.
Like AU Optronics, both Chunghwa Picture and Hannstar Display also registered increases in full-year revenue last year. Chunghwa Picture was up 38.83 percent to NT$81.7 billion and Hannstar Display was up 8.36 percent to NT$54.93 billion.
Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子) is expected to release its sales figures for last month and the whole of last year later this week.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six