Largan Precision Co (大立光), the nation’s leading maker of handset lenses, yesterday said consolidated revenue reached NT$1.31 billion (US$44.7 million) last month, up 32.62 percent from the previous month on rising demand for smartphones.
Last month’s consolidated sales were 51.69 percent higher than a year earlier and marked the highest sales since December’s NT$1.32 billion, according to information posted on the company’s Web site.
In the first three months of this year, the company’s consolidated revenue totaled NT$3.51 billion, down 9.58 percent from NT$3.88 billion in the previous quarter, but up 57.41 percent from NT$2.23 billion for the same period last year.
The Taichung-based company — whose customers include HTC Corp (宏達電), as well as the US’ Apple Inc and Motorola Inc — had managed to buck the seasonal downtrend as its quarterly sales decline of 9.58 percent was better than a fall of 18.4 percent a year earlier and a drop of 30.1 percent two years ago, company data showed.
Prior to yesterday’s sales disclosure, Citigroup Global Markets forecast Largan would post first-quarter revenue of NT$3.6 billion and NT$3.97 billion for the second quarter, as 8 megapixel lenses have gradually become the mainstream camera specification for most smartphones. Largan’s shipments of 8 megapixel lenses could account for 32 percent of its full-year sales of 62 million units this year, Citigroup said in a note on March 8.
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