Driven by better-than-expected demand for products across the board, Pegatron Corp’s (和碩) monthly revenue stayed above the NT$100 billion (US$2.97 billion) mark last month, boosting its quarterly sales to a record high of NT$412.29 billion for last quarter.
The iPhone assembler yesterday posted last month’s revenue, showing sales of NT$115.65 billion, a 0.75 percent increase from a year earlier, but a 4.69 percent decline from a month ago.
The company’s quarterly revenue rose 17.14 percent from last year’s NT$351.94 billion and 33.19 percent quarterly from NT$309.53 billion a quarter earlier.
Pegatron’s annual revenue totaled NT$1.21 trillion last year, climbing 19.1 percent from the previous year’s NT$1.01 trillion and exceeding company chief executive officer Jason Cheng’s (程建中) goal of 10 percent annual growth.
“Other than the robust demand for consumer electronics products, client shipment requests for notebook products were stronger than the company’s previous estimate,” a Pegatron investor relations official said by telephone.
Pegatron shipped 3.6 million notebooks last quarter, jumping 56.52 percent from the 2.3 million notebooks sold in the previous quarter, the official said, adding that the shipment growth far exceeding the firm’s previous estimate of 25 percent quarterly growth.
The growth momentum for Pegatron’s motherboard and desktop products was also stronger than expected, with shipments increasing 20 percent from a quarter earlier, the company said.
Revenues from the non-computing segment, which includes the consumer electronics and communication segments, fell in line with Pegatron’s estimate, with sales from the two segments surging 35 percent from a quarter ago, the official said.
By the company’s definition, the tablet and notebook assembling business for Microsoft Corp is included in its consumer electronics segment, while the iPhone business contributes to the communication segment.
Pegatron — currently the sole assembler for Microsoft’s first notebook product, the Surface Book — started to ship Surface Books in the fourth quarter of last year.
The company said its capital expenditure of US$300 million last year was mainly used on building new plants in Suzhou and Kunshan in China. It added that capital expenditure this year would be similar to last year and would be spent on purchasing equipment and personnel recruitment.
Pegatron said it plans to install equipment in the new plants at the end of the second quarter this year, in accordance with client demands before the peak season starts in the second half of this year.
The company is to host an investors conference in the middle of March to disclose earnings statistics for last quarter, it said.
Pegatron shares dropped 3.58 percent to NT$64.6 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which lost 1.34 percent, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
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