Shares of Asia Optical Co (亞洲光學) plunged by almost the daily limit of 7 percent yesterday, as concern over the company's disappointing outlook for this year triggered a sell-off.
Shares in Asia Optical, the nation's No. 4 digital camera maker, fell 6.72 percent to NT$166.50 (US$5.14) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. Overseas fund managers sold a net of around 1.2 million Asia Optical shares.
Revenue and camera shipments are expected to decline this year after the company decided to pull out of low-margin operations to maintain profitability, Asia Optical chairman Robert Lai (
Lai said the company plans to hold margins steady this year by diverting its focus to high-end products, such as cameras with a higher resolution, better zoom functions and other special features.
Lai expects this strategy to bear fruit next year, saying shipments should soar to 7 million units.
Average selling price (ASP) should recover to US$150 next year from US$90 to US$95 in the fourth quarter of last year as the company concentrates on high-end models, he said.
Lai told investors on Friday that revenue would drop to less than NT$30 billion (US$927.3 million) this year from NT$33.6 billion last year.
Digital cameras made up 44 percent of the company's revenue last year, while camera lenses contributed 30 percent. Asia Optical shipped 4.6 million cameras last year.
Lai also slashed almost 40 percent off the company's forecast for camera shipments for this year, down to 3.9 million units from an earlier estimate of 6 million units.
Despite the decline, Asia Optical said in a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that the new strategy would have a medium to long-term impact on its operations.
In addition to low confidence in the company's outlook for next year, Vincent Chen (
"The company has surprised investors by predicting a 10.1 percent year-on-year decline in 2006 revenue," Chen said in an investment note yesterday.
"It is unavoidable that local digital camera contract manufacturers like Asia Optical will have to adjust their strategies to cope with falling prices," another industry analyst said on condition of anonymity.
But it will take time for the manufacturers to land high-volume orders from customers, such as Japanese camera vendors, as most firms are reluctant to outsource high-end models, he said.
Asia Optical posted net income of NT$2.8 billion for last year, up 14.4 percent from NT$2.44 billion the previous year. Earnings per share also increased to NT$12.31 from NT$11.26 over the same period.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
SK Hynix Inc warned of increased volatility in the second half of this year despite resilient demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips from big tech providers, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs. The company reported a better-than-projected 158 percent jump in March-quarter operating income, propelled in part by stockpiling ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. SK Hynix stuck with a forecast for a doubling in demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) essential to Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, which in turn drive giant data centers built by the likes of Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. That SK Hynix is maintaining its
RSS