Catcher Technology Co (可成科技), which supplies smartphone casings to Apple Inc, is expected to post record-high revenue for the fifth year in a row this year as the company is set to initiate a new capacity expansion project next quarter to cope with clients’ new smartphone casing orders, analysts said.
Catcher’s revenue is expected to grow 24.5 percent to NT$53.84 billion (US$1.78 billion) this year, from a record high of NT$43.24 billion last year, JPMorgan analyst William Chen (陳威元) said in a report released on Tuesday.
Citigroup Inc raised its revenue forecast for Catcher to NT$55.43 billion, 4.72 percent higher than its earlier estimate of NT$52.93 billion. UBS Securities also revised upward its revenue forecast for the company to NT$61.64 billion, from a previous prediction of NT$61.29 billion.
“Catcher’s year-to-date announced capital expenditure has beat our 2014 forecast, making our earlier forecast of iPhone allocation conservative,” Chen said, referring to Catcher’s announcement that it is purchasing new computer numerical control (CNC) machines for NT$2.5 billion
Chen expected Catcher to budget NT$8 billion in capital expenditure at most this year. Since the beginning of this year, Catcher has spent NT$7.5 billion on new equipment.
Catcher told an investor conference call on Tuesday that it planned to buy more CNC machines in the second half of the year in a bid to expand its annual capacity by 20 percent this year from last year.
The capacity expansion plan would help Catcher to supply new smartphone casings to clients through next year, chairman Allen Hung (洪水樹) said.
He did not say whether the strong growth momentum is driven by Apple’s new orders.
“Chinese smartphone vendors will play an important role [in Catcher’s capacity expansion plan],” Chen said.
Catcher also supplies metal casings to handset brands such as Sony Corp and HTC Corp (宏達電), as well as notebook makers including Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc, UBS analyst Arthur Hsieh (謝宗文) said in a report.
Catcher also produces metal casings for Apple’s iPad and MacBook products, Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券) analyst Dennis Chan (詹宗勳) said.
He forecast Catcher would allocate only 10 percent of its new capacity to casings for Apple’s iPhone 6, rather than the 15 percent to 20 percent estimated by other brokerages.
Chan forecast Apple would sell 12.5 million MacBook units this year and that sales of MacBook casings would comprise about 28 percent of Catcher’s total sales of NT$54.04 billion this year, which is about 6 percent higher than an earlier estimate of NT$51.17 billion.
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