Sercomm Corp (中磊) yesterday said it expects revenue to hit another record high this quarter, benefiting from a strong rebound based largely on China’s demand for its fiber-optic home gateway units.
China’s recovery is mainly backed by the Chinese government’s restoration of its push for fiber-to-the-home (FTT) installations during the second half of this year after the market stagnated in the first half of the year, the broadband and telecommunications equipment maker said.
“We are positive about our order outlook in the second half through the fourth quarter. We are seeing revenue moving toward a record high in the third quarter,” Sercomm chief executive James Wang (王煒) told a media briefing during the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) in Taipei yesterday.
Sercomm already saw its revenue surge last quarter to an all-time high of NT$9.3 billion (US$309.73 million).
“A strong rebound in the Chinese market is setting in since summer primarily due to the government-led policy push. Sercomm will benefit from this rebound because of our strong bond with local clients,” Wang said, referring to the rapid FTT deployment of Chinese customer China Mobile Co (中國移動).
The biggest telecom operator in China recently reached its annual FTT deployment goal for the whole year, well ahead of schedule, Sercomm said.
Sercomm expects to ship about 10 million home gateway units this year, helping it to take a 20 percent share of the global market, Wang said.
The home gateway, which facilitates connection between a local area network and a wide area network, is the biggest revenue source for Sercomm, accounting for a more than 60 percent share of its total revenues.
The company said it also saw a breakthrough development this year with a new networking technology called “low power, wide area” (LPWA) that includes NB-IoT, CAT-M1 and Lora technologies.
The LPWA technology is key to unlocking Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications, such as smart cities and smart homes, given its characteristics of long-range access and deep penetration, Wang said.
LPWA networks enable thousands of small battery-powered devices to operate for at least five years with low-cost modems and affordable connectivity, he said.
Sercomm is to start shipping the first batch of modules that support LPWA technologies in the next quarter to China and South Korea, he added.
In China, LPWA modules have been adopted by bike sharing operators to help locate their vehicles, while in South Korea, the modules are often seen in electricity, water and gas meters to help conserve energy, Wang said.
Shipments of LPWA-enabled modules and small cell base stations are expected to soar from less than 1 million units this year to 10 million units next year, Wang said.
The market is expected to see explosive growth over the next two to three years, he said.
By 2020, LPWA modules are expected to make up 10 percent to 15 percent of Sercomm’s overall revenue, he said.
This year, the revenue contribution will be just a single-digit percentage, the company said.
Taiwan’s government should speed up its efforts to bring smart electricity meters to residential households, as the technology is ripe for adoption, Wang said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last