Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s fifth-largest PC brand, yesterday reported that its third-quarter net profit dropped 26 percent year-on-year due to one-time tax expenses amounting to NT$1.52 billion (US$51.37 million).
Net profit last quarter grew 4 percent to NT$4.94 billion from NT$4.76 billion the previous quarter, driven by increased shipments of new tablet and notebook products, Asustek said.
However, because of increased tax expenditures, its third-quarter profit declined by a double-digit percentage from NT$6.71 billion a year ago, according to the company’s financial report.
Earnings per share (EPS) during the July-to-September period were NT$6.65, compared with NT$6.3 in the previous quarter and NT$8.92 in the same period last year.
Asustek chief executive officer Jerry Shen (沈振來) told an investors’ conference that the company plans to launch new smartphones during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January and new Chromebook products sometime next quarter as the traditional PC market keeps contracting.
“We remain optimistic about the desktop and laptop market, but our priority is to make the company’s smartphone business turn a profit next year,” Asustek chief financial officer David Chang (張偉明) said.
With more retail stores in China and cooperation with more tier-one telecom operators globally, Asustek aims to grow its smartphone business from about 1 million units this year to 5 million units next year, Shen said.
As for the company’s new Chromebooks, Asustek has targeted students and teachers as potential consumers for its two new models, which are tentatively priced at US$199 for a 11.6-inch model and US$249 for a 13.3-inch version.
In addition, Asustek also plans to launch wearable devices during next year’s Computex tech fair in Taipei, Shen said, without elaborating.
Currently, laptops remain Asustek’s largest source of sales with a 57 percent contribution to the company’s product portfolio, followed by tablets with a 20 percent share and motherboards with a 13 percent share.
For this quarter, Asustek forecast its laptop shipments would grow 8.88 percent to 4.9 million units from last quarter, while tablet shipments would increase 2.85 percent to 3.6 million units and motherboard shipments would drop 3.63 percent to 5.3 million units.
The company forecast an operating margin of 4 or 5 percent this quarter, compared with 4.5 percent last quarter, and it expected the figure to remain above 4 percent next year.
Looking ahead, Asustek expected notebook shipments to grow 15 percent to 21 million units for the whole of next year and tablet shipments to rise by 7 percent to 13 million units if it gets orders for Google Inc’s third-generation Nexus 7 tablet.
“We are still in talks [about the Nexus 7 orders],” Shen said.
“Our long-term competitor is China’s Lenovo Group (聯想), and we will try hard to strengthen our presence in the Chinese market to secure the company’s business,” Chang said.
Shares of Asustek closed down 1.76 percent at NT$223 yesterday.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is