Local contract notebook and electronics maker Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it expected declines in notebook, motherboard and desktop shipments for this quarter, but increases in consumer electronics, after last quarter’s earnings contracted 35.6 percent from the first quarter.
Shipments of notebook PCs, including regular notebooks and netbooks, are likely to decline by 15 percent to 20 percent from last quarter, while those of motherboards and desktop PCs will decline 5 percent to 10 percent, chief executive Jason Cheng (程建中) said.
Sales of consumer electronics this quarter will grow between 15 percent to 20 percent from last quarter, but those for communications items will remain flat, Cheng said.
The company’s guidance for this quarter came as it reported yesterday that net income contracted 35.6 percent to NT$822 million last quarter from NT$1.28 billion in the first quarter, due to a 20.7 percent quarterly increase in operating expenses and a NT$575 million loss in foreign currency exchange.
The increases of operating expenses were allotted mostly to new projects and research and development, chief financial officer Charles Lin (林秋炭) said.
Earnings per share (EPS) were NT$0.36 in the second quarter, below the first-quarter figure of NT$0.57 and analyst forecasts of between NT$0.6 and NT$0.8. On a yearly basis, last quarter’s EPS grew 220 percent from a loss per share of NT$0.3 in the second quarter of last year.
The company’s revenue reached a record high of NT$187.6 billion last quarter, up 25.8 percent from NT$149.2 billion in the first quarter and 79 percent higher than NT$104.78 billion a year ago, the data showed.
Gross margin and operating margin last quarter were 2.9 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, which were compared with 3 percent and 0.3 percent in the first quarter but lower than 3.2 percent and 0.7 percent analysts had expected.
Cheng said he expected gross margin to rise in the third quarter due to good order visibility.
Consolidated revenue was NT$391.11 billion in the first half, up 63.2 percent from NT$239.71 billion a year ago. Gross margin, operating margin and EPS in the first half were 4.9 percent, 1.2 percent and NT$0.93, respectively.
Looking ahead, Cheng said Windows 8 would create growth momentum for Pagatron, but the conversion to Windows 8 would take longer than previous operating systems, depending on users’ acceptance of the new operating systems.
Cheng said the firm’s fourth-quarter performance could exceed that of the second and expected the growth momentum to extend into the first quarter of next year.
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