Elan Microelectronics Corp (義隆電子), which supplies touch-panel chips for Google Inc’s Nexus 7 tablets, yesterday said revenue and shipments this quarter would grow significantly from last quarter, as customers are set to ship new devices equipped with touch screens.
The strong outlook would be an extension of the Hsinchu-based chip company’s stellar performance last quarter, when it posted its best quarterly net profit in 11-and-a-half years.
Net profit grew 49 percent year-on-year to NT$300 million (US$10 million), or NT$0.78 per share, last quarter, from NT$201 million, or NT$0.42 a share, in the prior quarter, thanks to a 3.5-fold expansion in shipments of touch-panel chips used in smartphones and tablets. That also represented growth of 23 percent from a year ago.
This quarter, strong demand for its touch chips and touch screens would drive up shipments and revenue, offsetting a 5 percent quarterly decline in shipments of microcontrollers and chips for computer peripherals, such as interactive joysticks, amid faltering end product demand, Elan chairman and president Yeh I-hau (葉儀皓) told a quarterly conference in Taipei, where investors and analysts packed the room.
“We are seeing a growth trend in [revenue in] the third quarter,” Yeh said, although the “growth rate will be less than the second quarter.”
Elan’s revenue expanded at a 30 percent quarterly rate to a record NT$1.89 billion last quarter from NT$1.46 billion in the first quarter, in which more than half came from chips used in touch panels and touch pads.
Yeh forecast that chips for smartphone touch screens would grow by at least 20 percent or might even double to 3 million to 5 million units from 2.5 million units last quarter, with the fastest growth coming from the Chinese market.
Tablet touch chip shipments would expand by up to 76 percent quarterly to 3 million units from 1.7 million, including 1.3 million units for Google’s Nexus 7, Yeh said.
Shipments of touch pads for notebook computers and Ultrabooks are expected to increase 12.68 percent quarter-on-quarter to 16 million units from 14.2 million last quarter, as some customers are scheduled to ship the first batch of touch-enabled Ultrabooks this quarter, Yeh said.
Elan has received about 30 projects to supply touch chips for Windows-enabled computers from first-tier clients, he said.
Last week, Elan announced that the company became the world’s first touch chip firm to receive a hardware certification for the upcoming new Windows 8 operating system.
Gross margin would rise from last quarter’s 38 percent, aided by better-cost touch chips for Windows 8-enabled computers, Yeh said.
Elan’s stock tumbled 2.65 percent to NT$45.90 yesterday, ahead of the company’s investors conference, underperforming the TAIEX’s 0.52 percent gain.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained