Catcher Technology Co (可成), which supplies casings for Apple Inc’s iPhones, yesterday reported a 2.5 percent monthly decline in revenue for last month to NT$4.88 billion (US$160 million) it attributed mostly to a labor shortage in China.
In August, Catcher made NT$5 billion in revenue and said it expects to regain growth as the labor issue has been solved.
Consolidated revenue during between July and last month rose 9 percent to NT$14.52 billion, from the second quarter’s NT$13.31 billion, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“We have gradually recruited sufficient manpower in September and our production will be back on the track in October,” Catcher spokesman and chief financial officer James Wu (巫俊毅) said by telephone.
The third-quarter figure of 6.4 percent fell short of the expectations of UBS Securities Pte Ltd.
UBS chief electronics hardware analyst Arthur Hsieh (謝宗文) said Catcher’s revenue last month was disappointing, but he foresaw a strong rebound next quarter.
Catcher would continue to be a major metal casings supplier to Apple, despite the labor shortage issue having limited its production, Hsieh said.
“The company said its new capacity announced in the first half of this year has already started mass production and is running at full utilization rate,” Hsieh said.
“It will continue expanding its capacity in the fourth quarter to meet the strong demand,” he added.
Catcher is expected to grow its revenue by 23 percent sequentially this quarter to NT$17.9 billion, primarily boosted by increasing shipments of metal casings for the new iPhone 6 models, Hsieh said.
Another Apple component supplier, Simplo Technology Co (新普科技), which supplies battery packs to Apple, yesterday reported revenue for last month of NT$5.4 billion, increasing 8 percent from August.
The firm’s quarterly revenue reached NT$15.21 billion during the quarter ending Sept. 30, a 11.51 percent increase from the second quarter’s NT$13.63 billion.
Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co (正崴) chairman Guo Tai-chiang (郭台強), who also chairs the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association, yesterday said he expects Apple’s local electronic component suppliers to show good performances as Apple will soon launch its new tablets and the iWatch next year.
Guo made the remarks on the sidelines of the Taipei International Electronics Show (Taitronics) and Taiwan International Green Industry Show’s joint opening ceremony.
Bureau of Foreign Trade chief secretary Wang Cheng-fu (王振福) echoed Guo’s remarks during the opening ceremony, saying that the exports growth rate of the nation between this January and August reached 8.5 percent.
Wang said that the figure was driven by the strong performance of the domestic electronics industry this year, adding that he expects the electronics industry to continue showing its robustness in the fourth quarter.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained