Largan Precision Co (大立光), the nation’s leading maker of camera lenses, saw net income drop 16 percent to NT$583.75 million (US$19.27 million) last quarter from the same period the previous year as a result of the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar.
The company’s gross margin fell to 53.67 percent last quarter, from 57.42 percent a year ago, company statistics showed.
“Largan lost up to NT$160 million last quarter because of the appreciation of the NT dollar against the greenback, which is the primary reason for our decline in gross margin,” Charles Chiu (邱東泉), spokesman and chief financial officer at Largan, said at an investor conference yesterday.
Every NT$1 appreciation against the US dollar will have a 1.5 percent impact on the company’s gross margin, Chiu said.
“If we remove the foreign currency exchange effect, Largan’s gross margin in the first quarter would have been more than 57 percent,” Gary Wang (王董騏), a research department supervisor at Mega Securities Co (兆豐證券), said yesterday.
Largan said its product mix would remain unchanged in the first half of this year, with video-graphics-array (VGA) lenses and non-VGA lenses accounting for 40 percent and 60 percent respectively.
The company is facing increasing pressure as stiffening market competition has caused prices to decline, while lens shipments for handsets also saw an 8 percent quarter-on-quarter decline in the first quarter.
“The decline in prices is a problem faced by the entire lens industry. But the question is: Who can survive the longest?” Largan chairman Scott Lin (林耀英) said yesterday.
Largan said 2-megapixel phone lenses would be its main sale item this year.
For the 3-megapixel models, which accounted for 7 percent of worldwide handset shipments last year, Largan said their ratio of product mix would grow, but was unlikely to reach 15 percent by the end of next year.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
Greek tourism student Katerina quit within a month of starting work at a five-star hotel in Halkidiki, one of the country’s top destinations, because she said conditions were so dire. Beyond the bad pay, the 22-year-old said that her working and living conditions were “miserable and unacceptable.” Millions holiday in Greece every year, but its vital tourism industry is finding it harder and harder to recruit Greeks to look after them. “I was asked to work in any department of the hotel where there was a need, from service to cleaning,” said Katerina, a tourism and marketing student, who would
i Gasoline and diesel prices at fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.1 per liter, as tensions in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices higher last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week rose for the third consecutive week due to an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, as the market is concerned that the situation in the Middle East might affect crude oil supply, CPC and Formosa said in separate statements. Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — rose 3.75 percent to settle at US$77.01
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
RSS