Shares of Catcher Technology Co (可成科技) yesterday rose 4.25 percent to a one-year high of NT$282 after the metal casing company reported better-than-expected earnings for last quarter.
Catcher, which supplies metal casings for Apple Inc’s iPhones, iPads and MacBook Pro, on Thursday posted net income of NT$9.52 billion (US$311 million) for last quarter, the highest quarterly profit in its history.
The result represented a 34.8 percent increase from NT$7.06 billion in the same period last year and 113.1 percent from the prior quarter’s NT$4.47 billion, company data showed.
It also beat Credit Suisse Group AG’s forecast of NT$6.3 billion and consensus estimates of NT$7.09 billion.
“Foreign-exchange gains and new product launches by our clients were the main growth drivers last quarter,” an investor relations officer at Catcher said by telephone.
The company reported non-operating gains of NT$4.01 billion for last quarter, including NT$2.4 billion in foreign-exchange gains, the official said.
Earnings per share reached NT$12.37 last quarter, compared with NT$9.18 a year earlier and NT$5.8 the previous quarter.
Gross margin was 50 percent in the quarter ending December, rising by 5.1 percentage points year-on-year, while operating margin reached a record 40.9 percent, up 6.6 percentage points.
Catcher attributed the growth to improvements in cost-efficiency and revenue expansion.
For the whole of last year, Catcher’s net income fell 12.3 percent annually to NT$22.02 billion, or NT$28.58 per share.
The company’s board approved a proposal to distribute NT$1.9 billion in cash as employee bonuses, but has yet to decide on its dividend plan, the official said.
The board also agreed to spend NT$6 billion to set up a subsidiary in Tainan, which is to focus on developing new material and production processes for new businesses.
Credit Suisse said in a report yesterday that Catcher’s revenue for this quarter might drop 33 percent sequentially to NT$16.14 billion due to seasonal softness in the iPhone’s product cycle, while Morgan Stanley estimated that revenue would fall 35 percent to NT$15.7 billion before picking up in the second half of the year on new product launches.
Morgan Stanley forecast Catcher’s revenue for this year would rise 9 percent to NT$85.8 billion from last year’s NT$79.11 billion.
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