Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, remained the strongest revenue earner in Taiwan last year, with its full-year sales accounting for 21.4 percent of the nation’s GDP, according to a survey released by the Chinese-language CommonWealth Magazine yesterday.
The survey also found that the nation’s top 1,000 manufacturers reported an increase of 4.4 percent in total revenue last year from the previous year, but saw a fall of 44.55 percent in combined net profits over the same period because of the impacts of natural disasters and eurozone debt problems.
Hon Hai, which makes Apple Inc’s iPhones and iPads, reported a record NT$3.45 trillion (US$118 billion) in consolidated revenues last year, up 15 percent from NT$3 trillion in 2010.
The magazine said Hon Hai’s impact on Taiwan is as much as that of Samsung Group in South Korea, where the conglomerate’s total revenue accounts for about 22.1 percent of the country’s GDP.
“However, based on the company’s first-quarter financial results, Hon Hai still faces pressures in cutting costs and improving its operations,” the magazine said in a statement.
On Saturday, the company said its net income was NT$14.92 billion (US$508.7 million), or earnings per share of NT$1.4, in the first quarter on an unconsolidated basis, down 57.3 percent quarter-on-quarter, while its gross margin shrank to 4 percent from 4.27 percent in the previous quarter and its profit margin fell to 0.9 percent from 1.05 percent during the same period.
Hon Hai was followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s largest maker of notebook computers, with NT$1.11 trillion; state-run refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油), with NT$1.03 trillion; Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) with NT$800.36 billion; and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), the world’s second-largest notebook maker, with NT$693.13 billion.
Rounding out Taiwan’s top 10 were Wistron Corp (緯創), the world’s third-biggest notebook maker, with NT$658.37 billion; electronics contract manufacturer Pegatron Corp (和碩) with NT$599.94 billion; Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s biggest LCD panel maker, with NT$510.08 billion; HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone maker, with NT$465.8 billion; and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, with NT$427.08 billion, the survey showed.
One significant phenomenon highlighted by the survey was that the “big companies get bigger” and this would become a trend, the magazine said.
While it was the first time that HTC entered the top-10 revenue list last year, thanks to high global demand for its own-brand products, LCD firms were struggling to stay on the list, with AU Optronics Corp (友達), the nation’s No. 2 LCD panel maker, falling out of the top 10 last year from No. 9 in 2010, the magazine said.
In terms of profitability, the top 1,000 manufacturers saw their combined net profits drop by NT$567.05 billion last year from the previous year, with an average return rate of 2.7 percent last year, compared with 5.1 percent in 2010, according to the survey.
TSMC retained the top place last year with NT$134.2 billion in net income, thanks to the company’s leading technology and solid customer relationships, the magazine said. TSMC was followed by Hon Hai, with NT$81.59 billion, and HTC, with NT$61.98 billion, it said.
The magazine yesterday also published the results of a similar survey among Taiwan’s top 500 service providers, showing the service sector also witnessed a decline in profits last year — down 25.78 percent year-on-year to NT$90.63 billion — despite a marginal increase of less than 1 percent in total revenue to NT$8.4 trillion.
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