HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) posted a sharp increase in net profit to NT$1.32 billion (US$44 million) for last quarter, benefiting from booming demand for smartphones and tablets.
The results were the Hsinchu-based LCD panel maker’s second successive profitable quarter after ending two years of losses in the final quarter of last year with a net profit of NT$187 million.
HannStar lost NT$730 million in the first quarter of last year.
The company yesterday attributed its growth in profit to strong consumer demand for smartphones and tablets.
HannStar has embarked on a three-year plan to transform its business into making flat panels for mobile devices. Last quarter, the company employed about 90 percent of its capacity to make panels for such devices.
The company’s balance sheet showed almost all key indicators improved significantly last quarter. Gross margin improved to 27 percent from 21 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. That was an improvement from 5 percent reported in the first quarter of last year, the firm’s financial statement showed.
The company’s earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin rose to 26 percent from 21 percent the previous quarter and from 10 percent a year ago. Net margin leaped to 17 percent from 2 percent in the fourth quarter and minus-9 percent in the same period of last year.
The firm’s average selling price inched up to US$58 per unit from US$57 in the previous quarter, while total shipments dropped 12.5 percent sequentially last quarter to 4.45 million from 5.14 million units in the previous quarter, company data showed.
Revenue dropped 11 percent quarter-on-quarter, or 10.8 percent year-on-year, to NT$7.57 billion in the first three months of the year, according to company statistics released earlier this year.
Shares of HannStar rallied 3.83 percent to NT$9.45 yesterday, their highest level since July 11, 2009.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to