TPK Holding Co (宸鴻), which supplies touchpanels for Apple Inc’s iPads and Apple Watches, yesterday said net profit rose about 1,100 percent last quarter from a year earlier, helped by asset disposal gains.
Net profits surged to NT$616 million (US$20.39 million) last quarter, compared with NT$52 million a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profits more than doubled from NT$296 million in the fourth quarter last year.
Earnings per share rose to NT$1.78 last quarter from NT$0.15 a year earlier and NT$0.89 a quarter earlier.
“Non-operating income has helped alleviate the company’s concerns about [profit] weakness during the slow season,” TPK chief financial officer Freddie Liu (劉詩亮) told investors in a teleconference.
The company reported NT$621 million in non-operating income, primarily from selling a stake in a subsidiary and idle land in China.
TPK also saw an improvement in its operations as it reported an operating income of NT$120 million last quarter, from an operating loss of NT$357 million a year earlier and a loss of NT$45 million a quarter earlier.
Robust customer demand for tablet touchpanels helped TPK earn an operating income as clients are to launch new models, TPK chief executive officer Michael Chung (鍾依華) said.
The momentum is to be fueled by clients’ sales of new smartphones in the second half, he said.
“Our goal is to book operating income every quarter this year,” Chung said. “We also aim to see year-over-year growth in revenue every quarter.”
The company said revenue would remain flat from last quarter’s NT$21.42 billion, which would represent annual growth of 25 percent from NT$17.09 billion in the second quarter of last year.
Operating margin is to reach between 0.6 percent and 1 percent this quarter, little changed from 0.6 percent last quarter, it said.
TPK declined to comment whether the company has regained orders from Apple for its new iPhone 8 series. The company stopped supplying touchpanels to Apple after the US company began adopting in-cell touchpanels for its iPhone 5 series.
TPK has been working with clients to develop new touchpanels for smartphones equipped with OLED screens, giving the company an advantage in winning orders, Chung said.
To cater to customers’ demands, TPK has created a new division to develop touchpanels used in smartphones, Chung said.
As for its strategic partnership with Chinese touchpanel maker O-film Tech Co (歐菲光) announced last month, Chung said the collaboration would have a positive effect and would not affect customers’ orders in the short term, hinting that O-film is not to compete with TPK for Apple’s orders.
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