Young Fast Optical Co (洋華光電), a manufacturer of small to medium-sized touch panel sensor products, returned to the black in the third quarter on the back of rising shipments of medium-sized products, a company official said yesterday.
Young Fast posted NT$31 million (US$1.06 million), or NT$0.22 per share, in net profit in the third quarter, compared with a net loss of NT$390 million, or a loss of NT$2.6 per share, in the second quarter, the company’s financial report showed.
The profit-making third quarter ended three consecutive quarters of losses.
However, the NT$31 million net profit was still lower than that during the same period last year, when the company reported a net profit of NT$246 million, or NT$1.64 per share.
Young Fast chairman Lin Teh-jeng (林德錚) attributed the third-quarter results to the strong sequential growth of shipments of medium-sized touch-panels.
This also caused Young Fast’s operating margin to rebound to 9.6 percent in the third quarter, from minus 4.6 percent in the second quarter.
“[We are] moving in the right direction,” Lin told a teleconference with investors.
Lin said the company’s medium-sized touch panel products started mass production during the July-and-September period with an encouraging yield rate.
Healthy production levels, as well as strong demand from clients launching new Windows 8 products, may help the company extend this momentum, Lin added.
However, the supply of film products may be an area of uncertainty for the company’s sales in the near future, Lin said, adding that current supply has been tight.
However, Lin said that high-level customer concentration could help the overall supply to downstream clients remain manageable.
Therefore, company revenue will continue to expand by double-digit percentages sequentially in the fourth quarter, with operating margin gradually improving, Lin said.
Lin further expected the risk of tight supply to ease in the second half of next year, following upstream film manufacturers expanding production.
Young Fast may spend a total of NT$2.5 billion in capital expenditure this year, while setting aside another NT$2.5 billion next year for raising capacity and for investment in products, including medium-sized touch panels and metal films, Lin said.
In the first three quarters of the year, Young Fast still posted net losses of NT$528 million, or NT$3.5 per share, compared with net earnings of NT$483 million, or NT$3.21 per share, recorded in the same period last year, statistics showed.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure