Camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) yesterday reported record earnings for the past quarter and said its business this month and next month would be better than last month.
Net profit reached NT$5.285 billion (US$173.8 million) in the July-to-September quarter, up 127.7 percent from a year earlier and 41.99 percent higher than the previous quarter, the company said.
Earnings per share were NT$39.4 for last quarter and totaled NT$89.51 for the first three quarters of this year.
Largan said 99 percent of its third-quarter net income came from camera lenses used in smartphones, tablets and notebook computers, with 8-megapixel products contributing between 40 and 50 percent to the overall income.
As for 10-megapixel and above products, they accounted for between 10 and 20 percent of the total last quarter, the firm said.
The company’s consolidated revenue was NT$12.08 billion for last quarter, up 69 percent year-on-year and up 21 percent quarter-on-quarter.
“Overall, October’s performance is better than September; November will be better than October, but we cannot predict December’s performance yet,” Largan chief executive officer Adam Lin (林恩平) told investors on a conference call.
Despite strong earnings and revenue recorded in the past quarter, gross margin declined 5.71 percentage points from the previous quarter to 52.49 percent.
Lin attributed the quarterly decline in gross margin to increasing in-house production of the high-cost voice coil motor and optical image stabilization items.
He said the company still has room to improve its production yield rate based on the third-quarter results.
He did not specify a number, but said the rate is within a “reasonable” range.
“The manufacturing of a new specification lens usually requires a short period of time to stabilize [the yield rate],” Lin said.
Asked by analysts about the firm’s recent purchase of a plot of land at Taichung Precision Machinery Science and Technology Innovation Park (台中市精密機械園區), Lin said that it would take time to build the new plant there, adding that the company expects the plant to begin production by 2016.
The new plant is to focus on lenses for smartphones, Lin said.
The actual capacity of the facility would depend on the circumstances at the time, he added.
In response to questions about the company’s product portfolios next year, Lin said many clients have ordered 13-megapixel camera lenses and some even have designs for 16-megapixel and 20-megapixel lenses.
Clients requesting larger apertures, such as 1.8 or 2.0, is becoming a trend, Lin said.
“However, the yield rate and our ability to achieve the requests will depend on our tooling plants,” he said.
Largan shares rose 4.74 percent to close at NT$2,320 yesterday in Taipei trading, ahead of the company’s quarterly conference call.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last