Taiwanese PC maker Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) last quarter for the first time caught up with smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) in handset shipments, Digitimes Research said yesterday, adding that Asustek launched its first smartphone in April last year.
“Thanks to the strong sales of Asus’ flagship ZenFone 2 model, its quarterly shipments were on par with HTC’s,” Digitimes Research said in a statement to media.
Asustek shipped just 1 million handsets in the second quarter of last year, but the PC maker’s quarterly smartphone shipment jumped to 4.4 million units last quarter, Digitimes Research said.
Meanwhile, HTC’s quarterly shipments plunged by 35.29 percent to 4.4 million handsets last quarter from 6.8 million units in the second quarter last year, Digitimes Research’s data showed.
On a quarterly basis, Asustek’s smartphone shipments jumped 46.66 percent from the previous quarter’s 3 million units, while HTC’s shipments dropped 12 percent from the first quarter’s 5 million units, the data showed.
An Asustek executive who declined to be named told the Taipei Times that Digitimes Research underestimated the company’s smartphone business.
“In our understanding, Asus’ smartphone shipments for last quarter were about to reach our quarterly target of 4.8 million units,” the official said by telephone.
If true, the PC company’s smartphone performance might have outpaced HTC’s 4.4 million units.
Asustek chief executive Jerry Shen (沈振來) in May told investors that the company expects the revenues contribution from smartphone segment to account for between 15 and 20 percent of the company’s total this quarter, compared with a contribution of 16 percent to total revenue in the first quarter of the year.
Asustek’s earnings for last quarter might gain support from its smartphone business’ rising revenue contribution, despite its notebook segment’s weakness due to the softer-than-expected PC demand, UBS Securities Pte Ltd said in a report on Monday.
“We now expect Asustek’s operating margin to edge up to 4.7 percent from the previous quarter’s 4.6 percent given the improving profitability of the smartphone business,” UBS analyst Arthur Hsieh (謝宗文) said in a note.
Asustek plans to launch a selfie-centered ZenFone model and the next generation of its Pegasus brand smartphone this month, as well as the high-end ZenFone Zoom in September.
The company has made an aggressive annual handset shipment target of 25 million units for this year, compared with last year’s 8.5 million units, Shen said.
He said that smartphone revenue would account for 20 percent of the company’s total revenue this year and climb to more than 50 percent by 2018, surpassing the revenue contribution from its PC segment.
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