Smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday said its sales rose 3.17 percent month-on-month to NT$15.47 billion (US$522 million) last month after the company began selling its new 5.9-inch One Max phablet.
However, last month’s sales were 27.12 percent lower than the NT$21.22 billion of a year ago. HTC had posted annual drops in monthly sales for 25 straight months since October, 2011.
Cumulative sales during the first 11 months of the year fell 2.86 percent to NT$190.96 billion from NT$267.45 billion during the same period last year, HTC said.
“The figure [HTC’s sales last month] falls in an acceptable range of between NT$15 billion and NT$16 billion, and that means the company is gearing up to bring out real changes,” Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券) analyst Dennis Chan (詹宗勳) said by telephone yesterday.
With sales of NT$14.99 billion in October and NT$15.47 billion for last month, the Taoyuan-based firm is likely to see its quarterly sales exceed its guidance of between NT$40 billion and NT$45 billion, Chan said.
MID-TIER
HTC recently launched mid-tier products to penetrate into emerging markets like China, but Chan said the firm can “hardly make a comeback” because newcomers like China-based Huawei (華為), ZTE Corp (中興), Xiaomi (小米) and Coolpad (酷派) have more extensive sales channels in their home market.
While reducing operating costs by closing assembly lines, HTC should also consider adding marketing expense to strengthen its presence in China,” he said.
However, Mega Investment Trust Co (兆豐國際投信) analyst Kevin Hsu (許鈞雄) said that HTC should most urgently consider using chip designer MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) chipsets for its new products to reduce costs.
“In China, consumers are M-shaped, with a group of people looking for luxury smartphones made by Apple [Inc] and a group of people searching for compact but cheap smartphones,” Hsu said.
Therefore, the company should approach the lower-end smartphone market in China and sell products that are less expensive than those made by Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi and Coolpad, he said.
“It may sound impractical, but that is the reality HTC has to face if it wants to make a turnaround in the Chinese market,” Hsu said.
“There is still a chance for HTC to post profits by selling low-end smartphones, but that will only be possible if the company changes its selection of components,” he added.
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,
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
STABLE RESULTS: Despite June’s lower consolidated revenue, second-quarter sales still reached a record high, driven by demand for chips for AI applications Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales of NT$263.71 billion (US$9.02 billion) for last month, its second-lowest monthly result this year. The world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement that its revenue last month only fared better than the NT$260.01 billion posted in February. Last month’s figure rose 26.9 percent from a year earlier, but slumped 17.7 percent from May, the company said. However, second-quarter revenue reached NT$933.8 billion, a record high for a single quarter, company data showed. The figure represented growth of 11.26 percent from the first quarter and 38.6 percent from a year earlier. Previously, TSMC said that
RSS