HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s largest maker of handsets running on Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system, expects second-quarter sales to grow between 8 percent and 11 percent year-on-year, or 19 percent to 22 percent quarter-on-quarter, to between NT$37.5 billion (US$1.12 billion) and NT$38.5 billion.
In addition, the maker of the world’s first Android platform smartphone anticipates slight improvements in its second-quarter gross margin to the range of 31 percent, compared to 30.6 percent in the first quarter.
“At this point, Windows Mobile is still the company’s primary focus because we believe in Microsoft Inc’s value proposition, and HTC has come a long way toward developing multiple user-friendly interface phones,” chief financial officer Joey Cheng (鄭慧明) said via teleconference yesterday.
Cheng said the two platforms were not mutually exclusive and that additional Android competition would translate into growing a bigger pie. For the full year, HTC plans to roll out a total of 15 handsets, he said.
For the first three months of the year, the handset maker shipped 2.4 million units and booked NT$31.59 billion in sales, registering 3 percent and 31.59 percent declines year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter respectively.
Meanwhile, first-quarter net profit came to NT$4.87 billion, sliding 39.7 percent from last quarter and 29.8 percent from the same period last year.
Cheng attributed the slide to first quarter product delays.
The company’s dividends for last year is NT$27 in cash dividend and 1.5 percent stock dividend per share, Cheng added.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS