Largan Precision Co (大立光), a major smartphone camera lens supplier to Apple Inc, might face limited earnings growth this year given the industry’s slow transition to higher-resolution lenses, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) Taipei-based analyst Jeff Pu (蒲得宇) said.
“With limited earnings upside and high market expectations, we continue to suggest investors take profit on the stock,” Pu wrote in a note to clients on Thursday last week.
Largan reported sales of NT$4 billion (US$127 million) for last month, up 66 percent year-on-year, but down 30 percent from December last year, falling below market expectations of a 20 percent decline month-on-month.
Pu said that Largan’s sales for last month came in below expectations due to lower demand for Apple iPhones, a smaller proportion of iPhone 6 Plus models in Largan’s shipment mix and weak demand from Chinese handset brands.
“February will be affected by fewer working days, and we don’t expect much of a recovery in March owing to the fast-falling number of iPhone [shipments],” said Pu, who maintained his “downgrade” rating on Largan shares and his price target of NT$2,650 for the stock.
Pu said that the camera specifications of the next-generation iPhone, dubbed iPhone 6S, will stay the same as the current iPhone 6 at 8-megapixels, limiting potential catalysts to push Largan’s stock price higher in the second half of the year.
Pu said that although the migration to 8-megapixel and 13-megapixel lenses would remain strong among Chinese vendors of mid-tier and low-end phones, upgrades to 16-megapixel and 20-megapixel lenses for flagship phones would be slow given the limited supply of CMOS sensors — used to convert light into electrons.
“On the other hand, we expect the specification migration in high-end models to be from new features, such as optical image stabilization and fast autofocus, which benefit module makers more than lens makers, in our view,” Pu said.
Data from Japanese research firm Techno Systems Research Co showed that Japan-based Sony Corp led the 2013 global CMOS image sensor market with a 33 percent share by sales value.
Sony, whose CMOS sensors are used in handsets made by Apple, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd (華為), announced on Monday last week that it plans to increase its production capacity for stacked CMOS image sensors from its current level of about 60,000 wafers per month to about 80,000 wafers per month by the end of June next year.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
RSS