LCD panel maker HannStar Display Corp’s (瀚宇彩晶) shares yesterday rallied 9.53 percent in Taipei trading after posting positive results for last quarter a day earlier, outperforming its local peers.
The stock skyrocketed to NT$6.32, while shares of the nation’s two biggest panel makers, AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) and Innolux Corp (群創), inched up 0.14 percent and 0.24 percent to NT$7.66 and NT$6.32 respectively.
HannStar’s net profit surged 66.67 percent to NT$305 million (US$9.72 million) in the second quarter from NT$183 million in the first, but dipped 63.2 percent from NT$829 million a year earlier.
Earnings per share were NT$0.1, up from NT$0.06 in the first quarter, but down from NT$0.26 the previous year.
HannStar yesterday posted a monthly drop of 4.05 percent in revenue for last month to NT$1.42 billion from NT$1.48 billion in June. That represented a 12.35 percent contraction from July last year.
HannStar is the only local LCD panel maker that made a profit last quarter, benefiting from its efforts to reduce exposures to volatile displays for mobile phones, while scaling up its presence in industrial devices and automobile displays.
Mobile phone displays contributed about 33 percent to HannStar’s revenue of NT$4.26 billion last quarter, while displays used in tablets and related applications accounted for 54 percent, the company said.
With improved average selling prices at US$33 per unit and higher shipments of 4.24 million units last quarter, the company’s gross margin grew to 13 percent from 11 percent in the previous quarter, it said.
However, the figure was down from 28 percent a year earlier, due to relatively lower selling prices and shipments on a yearly basis.
HannStar operates a 5G LCD fab and a touch sensor/module fab at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區).
It has applied to the Ministry of Economic Affairs to invest NT$7.91 billion to boost display capacity for those used in wearable devices, vehicles, intelligent home appliances and touch screens.
Separately, AUO, which has large exposures to the TV and PC panel market, said that revenue shrank 9.4 percent to NT$22.04 billion last month from NT$24.3 billion in June.
Compared with July last year, revenue dropped 14.6 percent from NT$25.8 billion.
Shipments of LCD TV and PC panels fell 12.9 percent monthly to 8.41 million units, AUO said.
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