The world’s biggest touch panel maker, TPK Holdings Co (宸鴻), yesterday posted a 2.9 percent decline in revenue for last month to NT$15.31 billion, from March’s NT$15.78 billion. However, that was a 27.5 percent increase from NT$12 billion a year earlier.
Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Birdy Lu (呂家霖) said TPK was on track to meet his forecast. He expected revenue this month to be similar to last month and to drop slightly next month.
TPK, a major supplier of touch modules for Apple Inc’s iPhone, expected revenue for the current quarter to drop between 10 percent and 15 percent from the past quarter, because demand for smartphones and tablets would decline on seasonal factors.
The company forecast growth momentum to pick up in the second half of this year, after it expanded capacity of touch panels used in PCs to cope with seasonal demand.
TPK’s local rival, Wintek Corp (勝華), yesterday said revenue grew 11.31 percent month-on-month to NT$7 billion last month, driven by an increase in PC and tablet demand, compared with NT$6.29 billion in March. However, the figure was 24.65 percent lower than NT$9.29 billion in April last year.
In related news, the Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) is to begin assembly of a new version of the iPhone in July, local companies in the Apple supply chain said yesterday. However, Hon Hai, the world’s largest electronic manufacturing services (EMS) provider, would not confirm what other Apple supply chain members said.
Supply-chain companies said Apple started receiving components and parts for the new iPhone, which is expected to be named the iPhone 5S, at the beginning of this month.
Because it usually takes two months for the production process to reach the assembly stage, EMS providers are expected to begin assembling new iPhones in July, sources said.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
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