Wistron Corp (緯創), the world’s third-biggest contract notebook maker, expects its notebook shipments to grow about 20 percent in the second half of the year from the first half, Wistron chairman Simon Lin (林憲銘) said yesterday.
Lin said that every product line except for TV assembly should be able to maintain 20 percent growth as forecast at the beginning of this year, but that TV shipments were likely to drop in the second half or remain at the same level as in the first half of the year.
Besides TVs and notebooks, Wistron also makes handheld devices, servers, liquid-crystal displays and desktop PCs.
Saying that last year was a challenging year for the company, with a drop in profits compared with 2010, Lin said this year had also brought some big challenges, including the escalating eurozone debt crisis and China’s declining economic growth.
The impact from the eurozone and China was especially evident in the first quarter, when orders across product lines and industries shrank, Lin said. However, he said he had seen some good signs in the industry’s recent development.
In the past year, the notebook industry was hard hit by the success of Apple Inc’s iPads, but now customers have gradually come to the realization that iPads cannot replace notebooks, Lin said, adding that tablets have created both a separate need and a separate market. The notebook market has begun to bounce back as the impact from tablets dies down, Lin said.
Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system is also on the horizon and has helped boost the morale of the non-Apple camp, as well as market momentum, Lin said, adding that Wistron would step up investment in touch panels to cope with the trend.
Lin said he had seen orders coming in quickly and was therefore preparing increased capacity. He said he expected the notebook market to grow slowly, but stably in the future, and forecast that the company’s shipment of notebooks in the second half of the year would top that of the same period last year.
Wistron said it shipped a record 31.55 million units of notebooks last year.
According to the company’s financial statement, Winstron’s consolidated revenue last year reached NT$658.37 billion (US$22.04 billion), with operating income at NT$10.58 billion. The company’s net profit last year was NT$9.07 billion, with earnings per share of NT$4.36.
Shareholders yesterday approved the company’s plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2.20 and a stock dividend of NT$0.50 per common share or 5 percent.
RECORD BUDGET: TSMC does plan to raise its proposed capital expenditure a lot, and could benefit if Intel outsources more of its production to foundries, analysts said Intel Corp’s earnings conference call on Thursday is expected to clarify the US semiconductor giant’s outsourcing production plans, which would be crucial regarding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) performance, analysts said. “TSMC stands to benefit if Intel outsources more of its fabrication to foundries,” SinoPac Securities Investment Service Corp (永豐投顧) analysts said in a note on Friday. Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) was more cautious, saying that Intel’s contribution initially would be limited, but its outsourcing plans would still highlight TSMC’s leadership in technology, it added. “Intel will continue to manufacture server or high-end central processing units [CPUs], which have higher
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday announced it would give incentive bonuses totaling NT$1.7 billion (US$59.7 million) to its employees and those at the firm’s major subsidiaries, after the smartphone chip supplier’s revenue hit US$10 billion last year. This is the biggest incentive bonus the Hsinchu-based handset chip designer has ever distributed in its 23-year history. About 17,000 full-time employees of MediaTek and five of its subsidiaries, including Richtek Technology Corp (立錡科技) and Airoha Technology Corp (絡達科技), would receive a “red envelope” of NT$100,000 each, the company said. “Surpassing US$10 billion is just the beginning. We will continue to [grow] on this basis,” MediaTek
TO SPUR REVENUE: The contract chipmaker expects its profit to grow 15 percent this year, outpacing the foundry industry’s projected advance of about 10 percent Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its projected capital spending for this year by 62 percent, a new high, in an attempt to satisfy customer demand for advanced technologies in the production of central processing units, high-performance-computing (HPC) devices and 5G applications. After investing US$17.24 billion last year, TSMC this year plans to spend US$25 billion to US$28 billion on manufacturing equipment and new facilities, including a fab in the US. About 80 percent of the budget would be allocated for developing advanced technologies including 3, 5 and 7-nanometer technologies, the company said. The larger-than-expected capital spending prompted speculation
Norway’s oil and gas reserves have made it one of the world’s wealthiest countries, but its dreams for deep-sea discovery now center on something different. This time, Oslo is looking for a leading role in mining copper, zinc and other metals found on the seabed and in hot demand in green technologies. The country could license companies for deep-sea mining as early as 2023, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy said, potentially placing it among the first countries to harvest seabed metals for electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar farms. However, that could also place it on the front line of