Coretronics Corp (中強光電), which supplies backlight modules for flat panels, yesterday said net profits grew 12.13 percent sequentially last quarter, driven by strong growth in customer demand for notebook computers, especially Ultrabooks, and larger LCD TVs.
The company’s net income grew to NT$268 million (US$8.93 million), or NT$0.35 per share in the April-to-June period, compared with NT$239 million, or NT$0.29 per share, in the first three months, according to the company’s financial statement. That was an annual contraction of 36.6 percent from NT$423 million, or NT$0.38 per share.
This quarter, Coretronics expects shipments of backlight modules to grow by single-digit percentage points from last quarter’s 17.17 million units as major clients are scheduled to launch new notebooks including new tablets, Ultrabooks and standard laptops, Sarah Lin (林惠姿), president of the company’s energy-saving business group, told investors.
Notebook backlight module shipments are expected to grow 50 percent this quarter from last quarter, but the growth would be offset by weakness in backlight modules used in TVs and monitors, she said.
“We are seeing consistent growth from notebooks and Ultrabooks in the third quarter ... Customers are quite positive about their [shipment] volume figures,” Lin said.
Coretronics has logged 6 million Ultrabook orders this year, which means that the size of the global Ultrabook market would not be as small as the 6.5 million units projected by some pessimistic analysts, Lin said.
The market is likely to approach 10 million units, she said, but added that Intel Corp’s and Microsoft Corp’s forecast of 20 million units will not happen.
This quarter, tablet backlight modules would be another growth driver, with Coretronics scheduled to ship several new models at the end of this quarter, Lin said.
Boosted by the sales of new models, Coretronics expects shipments of notebook backlight modules to jump 50 percent this year from last year’s 18 million units.
Backlight modules made up 63 percent of Coretronics’ revenues of NT$17.98 billion last quarter. In that quarter, shipments of notebook backlight modules expanded 50 percent from the first quarter, while television backlight module shipment grew 10 percent quarterly mostly from demand for TVs with screens over 40 inches in size.
Coretronics’ projector business would be little changed this quarter with demand from schools and corporations in the doldrums after a fall in spending amid a weak macroeconomy, Chen Shih-yuan (陳士元), president of the company’s visual solutions business group, told investors.
Projector shipments are expected to dip slightly to between 240,000 units and 270,000 units in this quarter from 274,000 units last quarter, a quarterly decline of 6 percent, Chen said.
However, the company retains its full-year shipping target of 1.2 million units unchanged as the company expects to get a boost from new entry-level models, he said.
Projectors contributed about 15 percent of Coretronics’ second-quarter revenues.
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