HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 4 smartphone brand, yesterday said sales and shipments of smartphones in the first quarter could grow about 1.5-fold from a year ago amid solid demand.
Revenue is forecast to expand 147 percent to NT$94 billion (US$3.2 billion), while shipments are expected to rise 157 percent to 8.5 million units, the company said.
“We continue to see strong demand for existing products and expect recently launched 4G products to help drive shipment growth this year,” CEO Peter Chou (周永明) told an investor teleconference.
The smartphone market grew exponentially last year and the sector is expected to expand by another double-digit percentage this year, he added.
To cope with the rising demand, HTC is poised to double production capacity of its Shanghai facilities to 2 million handsets per month. There is also a new factory currently being built at its Taoyuan base, he said.
“We may outsource production to leverage other contract makers’ capacity. This will give us flexibility,” Chou said, without naming potential partners.
Despite a handful of analysts pressing HTC for its tablet PC plans during the teleconference, it refused to divulge details, including launch date, specifications or model numbers.
“We don’t want to just rush into the tablet PC bandwagon. We have to make sure our products are ready when we make the announcement,” Chou said.
HTC’s revenue nearly doubled to a record NT$278.8 billion last year, from NT$144.5 billion in 2009.
Net profit expanded 75 percent to NT$39.5 billion.
Smartphone shipments more than doubled to 24.6 million units from 11.7 million in 2009, while the average selling price inched down to US$350 from US$352, according to its statement.
“2010 was a breakthrough year for us. We turned from a small firm into one with a sizable scale and became a truly international company,” Chou said.
“HTC’s growth was faster than I expected,” he said.
HTC’s brand awareness hit 50 percent on a global basis last year, quadrupling from late 2009, when the company launched a global brand awareness campaign.
The spike in demand last year caught HTC unaware and the company suffered from raw material shortages, Chou said.
This year, however, with the company optimizing its operational process, including ensuring stable component supply, shipments should be smoother, Chou said.
HTC closed down 0.7 percent at NT$888 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday before the earnings announcement. Its stock has risen 141 percent for the past 12 months, outpacing the bourse’s 10.2 percent advance.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS