Electronics parts maker Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) expects revenue to grow by a single-digit percentage this year, attributed to rising demand for units used in cloud-computing servers, high-end camera modules and LED lighting, company executives said yesterday.
“These three products are likely to account for 30 percent of the company’s overall revenue this year, up from about 20 percent last year,” Lite-On said.
“Growth of the company’s bottom line is likely to outpace revenue growth this year, as Lite-On has been focusing on developing new and higher-margin products,” chief executive officer Warren Chen (陳廣中) told a media briefing yesterday.
“We recorded 6 percent annual growth in revenue last year, which is an uphill battle for same-scale companies like Lite-On to achieve,” Chen said. “We expect to see mild growth this year, too.”
New products including outdoor lighting, automotive headlights and rear lights, as well as components for industrial automation and medical devices will expand at the fastest pace; contributing about 20 percent of revenue, Chen said.
“We expect to see quite good growth for automotive electronics in 2017,” Chen said. “In addition to headlights and rear lights for cars, we are also supplying new cameras for autonomous cars for US and European automakers.”
Chen said the company is making progress toward its goal of doubling its share of the global car headlight market to 20 percent by 2019.
Lite-On, which commands 10 percent of the worldwide automotive headlight market, has landed orders from the world’s top five car light manufacturers to supply head lights and rear lights, Chen said.
Lite-On’s revenue rose to NT$229.54 billion (US$7.19 billion) last year, compared with NT$216.8 billion in 2015. In the first three quarters, net profit surged 45 percent year-on-year to NT$6.83 billion from NT$4.72 billion in the corresponding period in 2015.
Responding to questions about US president-elect Donald Trump’s call for companies to move manufacturing to the US, Chen said he “is conservative about this.”
To build a component manufacturing plant, companies need to consider whether they can reach an economic scale and the plant needs an ecosystem to support the production, Chen said.
“It will be more likely to assemble [car lights] in the US. It will be more difficult to produce components and modules,” Chen said.
Lite-On makes components for automotive lights in Mexico, he said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS