Smartphone camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Monday announced that it would distribute a cash dividend of NT$72.5, a new record high for the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The proposed dividend, greater than the previous year’s NT$63.5, reflects the company’s earnings per share of NT$193.65, the highest among all of the nation’s listed firms last year, and indicates a payout ratio of 37.44 percent.
The dividend distribution suggests a yield of 2.23 percent based on the company’s closing price of NT$3,250 in Taipei trading yesterday.
However, Largan shares have declined 19.15 percent this year, underperforming the broader market’s fall of 0.7 percent, as the firm’s revenue and gross margin have been under pressure over the past few months due to lower shipments of Apple Inc’s iPhone, lackluster yields of high-end lenses and a drop in its factory utilization rate due to a capacity expansion.
Largan’s lens shipments might increase in the next few months, as Apple is expected to launch three iPhone models later this year and its shipping orders for related components would start in the third quarter, while non-Apple handset vendors’ production ramp-up for new models might are also begin next quarter, analysts said.
Furthermore, consumer demand for better image quality and telephoto, large-aperture, and high-resolution lenses is rising, which might lead to higher lens prices, they said.
“Largan’s earnings are forecast to bottom out in the second quarter,” Capital Investment Management Corp (群益投顧) analyst Liu Yi-ho (劉宜和) said in a note on Tuesday. “Catalyzed by higher lens volume and price, Largan’s revenue for this year is forecast to increase 10.58 percent year-on-year to NT$58.746 billion [US$1.98 billion], while net profit is estimated to increase 2.9 percent year-on-year to NT$26.728 billion, with earnings per share of NT$199.31.”
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