Everlight Electronics Co (億光) shares moved higher yesterday after the nation’s top LED chip packager on Monday reported better-than-expected earnings per share of NT$3.51 for last year.
The shares also rose as investors welcomed the company’s proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$3 per common share, the highest level in three years with a payout ratio of 85.47 percent.
Everlight’s shares closed at NT$78.5 yesterday in Taipei, up 1.29 percent from the previous session and compared with the benchmark TAIEX 0.98 percent gain.
The cash dividend represents a yield of 3.82 percent, which is higher than interest rates of between 1.31 percent and 1.46 percent on one-year to three-year fixed savings offered by local banks.
The payout plan still has to be approved at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 11, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“In LED, investors know that solid earnings are a prized item as much of the stock valuation is based on somewhat distant future earnings. Everlight continues to be one of the three most profitable listed LED companies globally and its fourth-quarter results were outstanding,” Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券) analyst Andrew Chen (陳治宇) said in a client note yesterday. “Similarly, a high cash dividend is also a prized item in LED, as many companies do not generate adequate earnings in the short-run.”
On Monday, Everlight said its consolidated earnings more than doubled to NT$1.47 billion (US$48 million) from NT$542.5 million in 2012.
The nearly 170 percent annual increase in net income last year was due to the proliferation of general LED lighting. It also reflected the contribution of the company’s German lighting subsidiary, WOFI Leuchten GmbH.
The earnings per share of NT$3.51 last year was higher than analysts’ forecasts of between NT$3.43 and NT$3.46, and it compared with NT$1.3 posted in 2012.
With revenue increasing to NT$24.73 billion last year from NT$19.07 billion the previous year, gross margin improved by 1.74 percentage points to 25.01 percent from 2012 and operating margin enhanced by 2.4 percentage points to 8.13 percent over the same period, company data showed.
Given the upbeat outlook for LED lighting, Yuanta forecast Everlight’s revenue would grow 17.54 percent to NT$29.06 billion this year and expand another 14.96 percent to NT$33.41 billion next year, while earnings per share could increase to NT$4.24 this year and NT$5.12 next year.
However, Primasia Securities Co (犇亞證券) still had some concerns about Everlight’s long-term growth prospects.
Primasia analyst Filia Lin said in a separate note that Everlight’s rising sales contribution from LED lighting products, which have a relatively lower gross margin of below 20 percent, could cap the firm’s improving profitability.
“The company focuses more strongly on China’s LED lighting market, which will deliver slower growth than either Europe or the US,” Lin said yesterday. “Furthermore, several ongoing lawsuits with Nichia also remain a concern and we do not expect the patent war will end in the near future.”
Since 2006, Japan’s Nichia Corp has filed 28 patent suits against Everlight in Taiwan, the US, Japan, Germany and China, while Everlight has four patent suits against the Japanese firm — in Taiwan, Germany and China.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day