Despite a weak second quarter, E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s biggest e-paper display supplier, expects earnings to pick up in the second half of the year on strong seasonal demand.
Net income fell to NT$1.33 billion (US$45.94 million), or NT$1.22 per share, during the April-June period, compared with NT$1.68 billion, or NT$1.56 per share, in the first quarter, the company said.
However, the company remained optimistic about its performance in the second half of the year and revised up its guidance for e-reader full-year global shipments to 25 million to 30 million units, from the 20 million to 30 million estimates it made in April.
“Thus far, the company has received substantial orders for shipment in the third quarter, further raising our confidence that third-quarter revenues and profits could rebound to the levels seen in the first quarter, or even higher,” company chairman Scott Liu (劉思誠) told an investor conference.
Liu expects e-paper displays to account for more than 70 percent of the company’s revenues this year on growing shipments in the second half of the year.
The company attributed the drop in second-quarter profits to slow seasonal demand for both LCD panels and e-paper displays as well as clients’ move to digest old stock before launching new products in the third quarter.
“The second quarter has always been a slow season for the electronics industry,” Liu said.
Samsung Electronics Co — one of E Ink’s major clients for LCD panels, accounting for almost 30 percent of E Ink’s revenue — also cut orders in the second quarter as it struggled with higher-than-expected tablet inventories after Apple Inc launched its iPad2, he added.
However, Liu said he did not expect the iPad2 to cut into the demand for e-readers, adding that research showed that about 40 to 50 percent of people who have a tablet also own an e-reader, an indication that both markets would expand together in the future.
The firm’s net income more than doubled in the first half of the year to NT$3 billion, or NT$2.78 per share, on higher-than-expected profit in the first quarter, company data showed.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”