Simplo Technology Co (新普科技), the world’s largest notebook battery pack maker, yesterday said it expected fourth-quarter earnings to rise by as much as 7 percent from the third quarter, bolstered by strong laptop and tablet shipments.
The company, which supplies battery packs to Apple Inc’s MacBook laptops and iPad tablets, said in a statement that earnings this quarter would fall in the range of NT$1.03 billion (US$34 million) to NT$1.07 billion, from NT$1 billion in the third quarter.
That translates to earnings per share of between NT$3.67 and NT$3.82, compared with NT$3.59 in the third quarter.
Fourth-quarter revenue is expected to be between NT$13 billion and NT$13.8 billion, compared with NT$13.73 billion in the third quarter.
Revenue this quarter could end lower as clients become conservative amid global economic uncertainties, Simplo spokesperson Jackie Ding (丁惠敏) told investors.
“Simplo’s business forecasts are normally quite precise. Tablet shipments would fuel its business momentum in the fourth quarter,” said Cheng Kai-ming (鄭開明), an analyst with Horizon Securities (宏遠證券).
There might be less upside on shipments of notebook battery packs because the latest type of notebooks — ultrabooks — might not gain wide acceptance until Microsoft Corp launches its new operating system later next year, Cheng added.
Asked by an analyst how Simplo dealt with the defective battery packs it supplied for the iPad 2, chairman and CEO Raymond Sung (宋福祥) said the problem had been resolved and that follow-up shipments had been smoothly delivered.
Chinese-language newspapers reported last week that because of battery packs’ overheating and leakage problems, Apple switched some orders to Simplo rival DynaPack International Technology Corp (順達).
Aside from supplying batteries for notebooks and tablets, Simplo is aggressively moving into batteries for electric vehicles — including cars, scooters and bicycles.
He said he expected the market for electric vehicles to gain steam next year and hoped the business would break even.
Simplo is set to ship hundreds of battery packs for Yulon Group’s (裕隆) Luxgen passenger cars. It will also ship 5,000 to 6,000 packs for scooters, mainly for Taiwanese clients, and more than 10,000 packs for bicycles to European clients.
Simplo’s shares closed down 2.86 percent at NT$170 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday before the investors’ conference.
Its shares have slumped 19.81 percent this year, compared with the electronics sub-index’s 32.18 percent fall during the same period, stock exchange data showed.
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