Shares of Wellypower Optronics Corp (威力盟) bucked the market downtrend yesterday, rising 2.76 percent on its last day of trading on the over-the-counter market. The company will join the big technology stocks on the main exchange on Monday.
Wellypower is the nation’s largest maker of cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) used in computer and television flat panels. AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the nation’s biggest liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker, holds about 12 percent of the company.
The stock price of Wellypower climbed NT$1.7 to NT$63.3 on the smaller GRETAI Securities Market, whose turnover is roughly one-tenth of the nation’s main bourse, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE).
Turnover on the GRETAI amounted to NT$19.1 billion (US$628.3 million) yesterday, compared with NT$163.1 billion on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The TAIEX dropped 0.76 percent yesterday, while the GRETAI index slid 0.95 percent.
Hsinchu-based Wellypower will start trading on the main bourse with 1.6 billion in common shares on Monday.
Expansion
Wellypower, which holds a 10 percent share of the world’s CCFL market, said it planned to expand monthly output by about 50 percent to 24 million units this year, a company statement read.
CCFLs are used as backlight for most LCD panels. CCFL sfor TV panels accounted for more than 50 percent of Wellypower’s revenues of NT$6.87 billion last year, while those used in computers contributed 40 percent.
In search of new growth areas, Wellypower has also diversified into light emitting diode chip packaging services and hot cathode fluorescent lamps (HCFL) for general lighting, the company said.
LED
An increasing number of LCD panel makers are beginning to adopt LED chips as backlight, with some 13 percent of the world’s notebook computers expected to be outfitted with LED screens this year, up from a single digit percentage figure last year, market researcher International Data Corp forecast.
Wellypower plans to spend NT$1 billion (US$3.29 million) to NT$1.2 billion on new equipment primarily for the new LED and HCFL businesses, slightly lower than NT$1.5 billion last year, company spokesman Tony Chang (張多孜) said.
The company plans to provide packaging services for between 30 million and 40 million LED chips this year, tripling from 10 million chips last year.
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