Everlight Electronics Co (億光電子), one of Taiwan’s major LED chip packagers, expects its revenue in the third quarter to fall by 10 percent from the previous quarter amid lower demand, while returning to stronger growth in the fourth quarter on the back of a better lighting and small-size backlight business, a company official said yesterday.
Consolidated revenue totaled NT$5.45 billion (US$187.79 million) in the second quarter, up 27.76 percent from the previous quarter, the company’s financial data showed.
However, the company’s net profit dropped 7.41 percent from the previous quarter to NT$425.86 million, or NT$1.03 per share, in the April-to-June period, as its consumer electronics business — the sector with the highest gross margin — slowed on slackening demand.
“The weakening consumer electronics business led to a lower gross margin in the second quarter, further dragging down the company’s net profit,” company spokesman Liu Pang-yen (劉邦言) told an investors’ conference.
The company’s gross margin stood at 24.8 percent in the second quarter, down from 25.9 percent in the January-to-March period, its data showed.
Liu expects Everlight Electronics’ third-quarter revenue to decline by 10 percent from the previous quarter on lower prices of products led by weakening market demand.
However, the company’s cost-cutting strategy may allow third-quarter gross margin to remain at the same level as in the second quarter, Liu said, adding that its takeover of Tekcore Co (泰谷光電) earlier this year would also help the company save costs through vertical integration.
However, Liu said small-size LED backlights — used mainly in smartphones and tablet PCs — and its LED lighting business may drive up the company’s revenue in the fourth quarter, because the company is seeing orders rebound.
Currently, the lighting sector is fully focused on self-branded products, Liu said, adding that the company expected the sector’s revenue to account for 10 percent of total revenue by the end of the year, while further expanding to 15 percent by the end of next year.
The lighting business currently accounts for 8 percent of the -company’s overall revenue, while consumer electronics, backlights and invisible light products make up the other 51 percent, 17 percent and 24 percent respectively, Liu added.
In the first six months, net profit stood at NT$886.01 million, or NT$2.12 per share, compared with NT$1.4 billion, or NT$3.37 per share, the previous year, according to the company’s financial data.
Cumulative sales surged 17.04 percent to NT$9.72 billion from a year earlier in the second half of the year, data showed.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
CONCERNS: Tech companies investing in AI businesses that purchase their products have raised questions among investors that they are artificially propping up demand Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday said that the company would be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” “We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” Huang did not say exactly how much Nvidia might contribute, but described the investment as “huge.” “Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, referring to OpenAI
Nvidia Corp’s negotiations to invest as much as US$100 billion in OpenAI have broken down, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, exposing a potential rift between two of the most powerful companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. The discussions stalled after some inside Nvidia expressed concerns about the transaction, the WSJ reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the deliberations. OpenAI makes the popular chatbot ChatGPT, while Nvidia dominates the market for AI processors that help develop such software. The companies announced the agreement in September last year, saying at the time that they had signed a letter of intent for a strategic
RSS