HTC Corp (宏達電) could miss its financial forecast for the first quarter of this year due to delayed shipments of its new HTC One flagship phone, JPMorgan Securities said.
HTC is expected to post revenue of NT$45 billion (US$1.5 billion) in the January-to-March quarter, well below the company’s target of between NT$50 billion and NT$60 billion, JPMorgan wrote in a research note on Friday.
It also cut its estimates for HTC’s shipments for the first quarter from 7.3 million units to 5.6 million units, and to 7.9 million units in the second quarter from the 8.9 million units it originally forecast.
“We cut our first-quarter and second-quarter unit estimates to reflect production issues with the new HTC One smartphone and a sharp deceleration in China sales,” JPMorgan analyst Alvin Kwock (郭彥麟) wrote in the note.
“HTC’s eggs are all in ‘One’ basket now. Given the positive consumer reviews, we suggest closely monitoring the production of the new HTC One in the second half of April,” said Kwock, who gave HTC’s stock an “underweight” rating and set a target price of NT$160.
According to JPMorgan’s research, HTC has shipped between 2 million and 3 million units per month of the new One smartphone, despite the company’s limited marketing.
However, the company faces a severe shortage in optical image stabilizers, a key component in the phone’s camera, which means that it is only able to ship between 500,000 and 700,000 units this month, Kwock said.
Kwock attributed HTC’s declining sales in China in the past two quarters to price cuts by rivals Samsung Electronics Co, Apple Inc and several Chinese brands.
HTC shares closed down 1.64 percent at NT$240.5 in Taipei trading yesterday.
In a separate report, Macquarie Securities cut its target price for HTC shares from NT$200 to NT$142, and also gave the stock an “underperform” rating, citing the firm’s worsening shortages of critical components and increasing competition from Samsung’s Galaxy S4 model.
“We don’t expect the shortage to be resolved until the end of April, by which time Samsung may have begun to ship its S4 to operators,” said Daniel Chang (張博淇), an analyst at Macquarie Capital Securities Ltd’s Taiwan branch.
As a result, Macquarie lowered its monthly shipments forecast for the HTC One in the second quarter from between 1.5 million and 2 million, to between 1 million and 1.5 million units, a revision of between 25 percent and 30 percent.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
RSS