Shares of TPK Holding Co (宸鴻), which supplies touch panels for Apple Inc’s iPhone, more than doubled their initial public offering price (IPO) on their first trading day yesterday, closing 129.6 percent higher and outperforming the main bourse, which slid 0.8 percent.
TPK opened at NT$500 on its debut on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, surging from its IPO price of NT$220. The stock ended at NT$505 after pulling back from an intraday high of NT$527.
TPK makes glass and film-based touch screens for Apple, HTC Corp (宏達電), Samsung Electronics Co and LG Electronics Co.
Photo: Maurice Tsai, Bloomberg
While its strong debut indicated investors’ interest in snapping up shares of the touch-screen supplier, its local peers did not fare well and saw their shares drop amid portfolio adjustments.
Young Fast Optoelectronics Co (洋華), which supplies touch-screen modules to HTC, fell 3.2 percent to NT$360; Wintek Corp (勝華), which supplies touch panels to Apple and Nokia, dropped 1.53 percent to NT$51.60; and smaller rival J Touch Corp (介面光電) closed limit-down at NT$118.50.
“TPK really is the ‘Touch Panel King,’ and it will be hard for others to catch up in the short term,” Calvin Shao, who rates the stock “buy” at SinoPac Securities Co (永豐金證券), told Bloomberg yesterday. “Touch panels have the greatest momentum in the technology industry and TPK has the best technology.”
TPK on Thursday reported a third-quarter net income of NT$1.13 billion (US$36.7 million), up 56.9 percent year-on-year and 9 percent quarter-on-quarter, although its gross margin fell to 14.3 percent from 23.7 percent in the second quarter.
Nonetheless, analysts were positive on TPK’s revenue and earnings outlooks next year, given its superior technology in capacitive touch solutions, Capital Securities Corp (群益證券) said in a note yesterday.
The local brokerage said it expected the stock to rise to NT$545 in three months and further to NT$640 in a 12-month period.
“As one of the world’s foremost touch-panel makers and Apple’s largest long-term partner in the segment, TPK is set for significant growth over 2010-2012,” Hong Kong brokerage CLSA said in a separate note issued on Thursday.
CLSA had a target price of NT$506 for TPK, while Nomura’s target was NT$520.
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