Largan Precision Co (大立光), the world’s leading maker of handset camera lenses, yesterday said its consolidated revenue hit a record high of NT$3.21 billion (US$106.5 million) last month, up 13.37 percent from the previous month on rising demand for smartphones.
Last month’s consolidated sales were 67.69 percent higher than the previous year, according to the company’s Web site.
In the first four months of the year, consolidated revenue totaled NT$10.06 billion, up 43.36 percent from NT$7.02 billion in the same period last year.
The Greater Taichung-based company — whose customers include Apple Inc of the US, Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電) and China’s Xiaomi Corp (小米) — said last month it was optimistic that sales for last month and this month would continue growing sequentially, based on orders in hand.
As handset vendors in China continue to pull in inventories ahead of new product launches, which is boosting demand for 10 megapixel lens, Largan’s short-term revenue growth momentum may extend into this month, with second-quarter revenue set to increase 26.8 percent sequentially to NT$8.696 billion, Capital Securities Corp (群益證券) forecast.
In related news, metal casing manufacturer Catcher Technology Co (可成科技) yesterday said its consolidated revenue was NT$4.27 billion last month, up 4.8 percent month-on-month and 18.1 percent year-on-year.
In the first four months, accumulated revenue was NT$14.69 billion, up 14.3 percent from the previous year, the company said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.
PRODUCT LINEUP
The company’s product lineup includes metal casings for smartphones, tablets and notebook computers. Last month, management forecast that revenue for this quarter could increase by 15 percent from last quarter, driven mainly by smartphone casing products as HTC, Apple and Sony Corp ramp up their shipments this quarter.
Catcher’s revenue for this quarter is set to rise 17 percent from NT$10.4 billion last quarter, with margins to expand from 41.3 percent in gross margin and 30.8 percent in operating margin last quarter on better economies of scale, HSBC Securities Corp forecast.
Largan shares rose 1.02 percent to close at NT$1,980 yesterday, the nation’s priciest, while Catcher shares surged 5.06 percent to close at NT$270.
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