MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體) yesterday said first-quarter net profit expanded at a 7.5 percent annual rate to NT$1.54 billion (US$52.4 million), helped by growing demand from its TV chip customers, bucking a downtrend in the seasonally slow period.
As the seasonal factor would continue to weigh on the company’s business this quarter, revenues would likely be flat or grow up to 6 percent to between US$300 million and US$318 million, from last quarter’s US$300 million, Wayne Liang (梁公偉), chairman of the world’s top supplier of chips for LCD TVs, told investors.
“The second quarter will be a seasonally slow quarter, with TV chip shipment to being flat, or growing slightly,” Liang said.
TVs chips contributed about 70 percent to the company’s total revenue last quarter, with direct clients from Taiwan, China and South Korea.
Liang’s revenue growth forecast fell short of an 11 percent quarterly growth estimated by Credit Suisse’s Randy Abrams.
Gross margin would contract slightly to between 40 and 42 percent this quarter from 42.5 percent in the January-March period, Liang said, matching Abrams’ forecast.
In the first quarter, net profit increased to NT$1.54 billion, or NT$2.91 a share, compared with NT$1.43 billion, or NT$2.7 a share, in the corresponding period last year, making the first quarter the strongest first quarter in MStar’s history, the company said.
The figure was down 7.5 percent from the fourth quarter’s NT$1.66 billion, or NT$3.13 per share.
This quarter, handset chips would grow at a 20 percent quarterly rate after clients launch mobile phones equipped with its new feature phone chips, which would help customers save on cost, Liang said.
Growth in higher-margin chips for conditional access set-top boxes would offset a decline in chips for unencrypted set-top boxes, he added.
Handset chips made up 15 percent of MStar’s overall revenue last quarter and chips for set-top boxes accounted for more than 5 percent, the chipmaker said.
The third quarter looked like a more exciting period for MStar as shipments of its new chips for smart TVs would grow significantly and customers would start mass production of its first smartphone chips supporting 3G and EDGE technologies by then, according to the company.
MStar has more than 10 clients using its new smartphone chips.
Liang said the company maintained its target of seizing 15 percent share of the world’s feature phone market.
The company also expects its TV chip business to outgrow the 10 percent annual rate for the world’s LCD TVs this year, he added.
MStar also reported its best monthly revenue last month. Revenue was NT$3.11 billion last month, up 9.5 percent from NT$2.83 billion a year earlier, but down 9.2 percent from NT$3.42 billion in March.
Local rival MediaTek Corp’s (聯發科) revenue increased 4.19 percent year-on-year to NT$7.94 billion last month from NT$7.62 billion, but down 3.48 percent from March’s NT$8.23 billion.
MediaTek said in a statement that it expected revenue this quarter to expand as high as 20 percent sequentially to NT$23.5 billion, helped by robust demand for smartphone chips.
MediaTek, the nation’s biggest handset chip designer, said the board yesterday approved a proposal to distribute NT$4 per share in cash dividends based on last year’s net profit of NT$13.63 billion, or NT$12.35 per share.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last