Share prices of HTC Corp (宏達電), Asia’s second-largest smartphone maker, fell the most in two months in Taipei trading after forecasting first-quarter revenues that missed analyst estimates as it faces tougher competition in the US.
HTC share prices dropped by its 6.9 percent daily limit, the most on an intraday basis since Dec. 5 last year, ending trading at NT$513.
Trading volume was double the three-month daily average. Sales this quarter will be NT$65 billion (US$2.2 billion) to NT$70 billion, the Taoyuan-based company said on Monday. That is the lowest since the second quarter of 2010 and below the NT$84.9 billion average of 14 analyst estimates.
Competition from Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy models damped demand for HTC devices in the US, while sales of faster LTE fourth-generation models did not meet expectations, chief financial officer Winston Yung (容覺生) said on Monday.
New models will be released next quarter, prompting the weak guidance this period as the company awaits “product transition,” Yung said.
“HTC is likely to lose further economies of scale in manufacturing in 2012 and 2013, as we forecast its shipments for 2012 to decline further to one-third of those of Samsung and Apple, down from half for 2011,” Alex Chang, an analyst at Daiwa Capital Markets in Taipei, wrote in a report yesterday.
Daiwa downgraded the stock to “sell” from “hold” and lowered the six-month target price to NT$333.
HTC became the largest smartphone maker in the US during the third quarter as consumers awaited the next iPhone model, according to data from researcher Canalys. HTC cut its fourth-quarter sales outlook on Nov. 23 by more than 20 percent, citing competition from the iPhone 4S.
Thirteen of 35 analysts tracked by Bloomberg now recommend investors sell the stock, with eight saying “buy” and 14 advising to “hold.”
HTC will release new models at the Mobile World Congress to be held in Barcelona, Spain, beginning on Feb. 27, Yolanda Wang, a Taipei-based analyst at HSBC Holdings PLC, wrote in a report.
She maintained her “underweight” rating on the stock and cut her price estimate 6 percent to NT$386.
Share prices, which have risen 4 percent this year, dropped 42 percent last year and are down more than 58 percent from their peak in April last year.
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
RSS