Touchpanel controller supplier FocalTech Systems Co Ltd (敦泰科技) yesterday said that its net profit grew 3.3-fold last quarter, as adoption of higher-margin integrated driver and controller (IDC) chip for mobile display panels gained traction after two years of deployment.
Net profit surged to NT$134 million (US$4.4 million) last quarter, compared with NT$31 million in the second quarter. That also represented an expansion of 44 percent from NT$93 million in the same period last year.
Gross margin edged up to 20.6 percent last quarter from 20.5 percent in the prior quarter.
The growth in IDC chip shipments bolstered the company’s confidence that integrated chips are on track to become the next mainstream solution for mobile LCD panels and would play a key role in fueling FocalTech’s next-stage growth, company chairman Genda Hu (胡正大) said.
Sales of IDC chips should provide a cushion against seasonal weakness this quarter, Hu said.
“Fourth-quarter revenue is likely to drop slightly after hitting the peak in the third quarter [of the year], in line with the seasonal pattern that we have seen in the mobile phone industry over the past three years,” Hu said.
“As our IDC shipment is still growing, we believe we will see a milder [quarterly] decline than our peers,” he added.
Revenue last quarter jumped 26 percent to NT$3.27 billion from NT$2.6 billion in the previous quarter, thanks to growing seasonal demand across the board.
Conventional controller chips for flat panels remained the major revenue source for the chipmaker.
During the quarter ending Sept. 30, FocalTech shipped 19 million IDC chips, a spike of 58 percent from 12 million units in the second quarter, as the cost of IDC chips for in-cell touch modules nears the crossover point compared with that of out-cell touch modules.
As of last quarter, FocalTech had shipped 41 million IDC chips, still far behind the 100 million unit shipment target the company set at the beginning of the year.
“The rate of adoption of IDC chip fell short of our expectations,” Hu said. “We found that high cost was the determining factor behind the slower uptake of IDC chips.”
In addition, mobile phone vendors postponed new product launches by longer than three months to redesign their phones to feature mobile screens with an aspect ratio of 18:9 such as the latest iPhone series.
FocalTech’s IDC chip is used in Xiaomi Corp’s (小米) Xiaomi MIX2, Sharp Corp’s AQUOS S2, Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) Maimang 6 and Vivo Electronics Corp’s (維沃移動通信) V7 phone, it said.
The company expects market competition to escalate next year, with three or four new rivals, primarily from China, expected to enter the field.
California-based Synaptics Inc is currently its sole competitor.
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