Catcher Technology Co (可成科技), which makes metal casings for Apple Inc’s MacBook Air notebooks and iPad Mini tablets, yesterday reported that its first-quarter net profit fell 23.9 percent annually to NT$2.98 billion (US$98.69 million) due to lower non-operating income.
Earnings per share were NT$3.97 in the January-to-March period, compared with NT$5.22 per share a year earlier.
Despite a 18.8 percent increase in operating expenses, Catcher’s operating income grew 9.5 percent annually to NT$3.2 billion last quarter, mainly because the company’s sales expanded 12.8 percent from a year earlier, chief financial officer James Wu (巫俊毅) said in an earnings conference call.
However, due to lower-than-expected non-operating income, including interest and foreign exchange gains, Catcher’s pretax profit shrank 17 percent to NT$3.85 billion last quarter from a year ago, when it generated NT$1.72 billion in non-operating income, he said.
GROWTH GOALS
“Our sales are likely to take off beginning in this quarter, as most clients entered new product cycles last month,” Wu said.
“Achieving 15 percent sequential growth in sales this quarter should be possible for us,” chairman Allen Hung (洪水樹) said, echoing Wu and describing Catcher’s smartphone business as its main sales driver.
Sequential growth of 15 percent would require Catcher’s sales to expand from NT$10.41 billion last quarter to NT$11.97 billion this quarter, which would be its second-highest level ever. In the fourth quarter of last year, sales hit NT$13.11 billion.
Gross margin for this quarter is expected to be sustained between 41 and 45 percent as a result of a larger business scale, Wu said.
The company’s first-quarter gross margin was 41.3 percent.
To cope with growing orders for smartphone casings, Catcher on Tuesday last week announced that it plans to purchase NT$5 billion of computer numerical control (CNC) machines.
CAPITAL INVESTMENT
The new CNC machines would be installed at Catcher’s plants in China’s Suzhou and Taizhou cities beginning in August, and they are expected to boost the company’s total capacity by 20 percent this year from the previous, Hung said.
The number of CNC machines is to be increased to about 20,000 units this year from last year’s 16,000 units, including the 2,000 units purchased earlier this year, he added.
Other than Apple, Catcher also supplies casings to Nokia Oyj, Sony Corp and HTC Corp (宏達電), as well as PC brands including Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc, among others.
Sales of metal casings used in smartphones and tablet devices accounted for 60 percent of Catcher’s total sales last quarter, while sales of notebook casings composed the remaining 40 percent, Hung said.
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