ASRock Inc (華擎), the nation’s third-largest motherboard producer, on Monday unexpectedly posted its first quarterly loss, which it attributed to the anti-China riots in Vietnam in May.
Shares of the Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) subsidiary yesterday fell by the daily limit of 7 percent to close at NT$108.
ASRock, which is also involved in industrial PC and server manufacturing, said in a stock exchange filing that it swung into a net loss of NT$13.19 million (US$439 million) in the April-to-June quarter, after booking an inventory write-off of NT$140 million from its Vietnamese plant.
The company posted a net profit of NT$254 million in the first quarter.
ASRock said net loss per share was NT$0.12 in the second quarter. In the first half of the year, the company reported earnings per share of NT$2.09, down 58 percent from NT$5.01 in the same period of last year.
Since nearly 50 percent of the company’s Vietnamese capacity was suspended during the protests in May, sales for last quarter dropped 24.86 percent sequentially to a 16-month low of NT$1.99 billion.
Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) yesterday said ASRock’s Vietnamese capacity should be back on track in the second half and the inventory write-off should be reversed next year as the company is covered by insurance.
The brokerage said ASRock’s shipments could recover this quarter because of seasonal demand, but the company could see further market share loss as Gigabyte Technology Corp (技嘉) has been expanding its distribution channels in tier three and four cities in China since last year.
“We estimate motherboard shipments of 5.9 million units in 2014 for ASRock, down 15 percent year-on-year and lower than industry growth of 5 percent,” Yuanta said in a client note.
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