Everlight Electronics Co (億光電子), the nation’s top LED chip packager, last week reported 25.87 percent growth in first-quarter sales to NT$6.22 billion (US$206.97 million) due to increased shipments of chips for backlight applications.
While last quarter’s sales reflect sequential decline of 8.12 percent from the record level of NT$6.77 billion the previous quarter, the company forecast its sales this quarter would expand quarter-on-quarter at a double-digit rate on the back of rising LED lighting penetration.
“Our sales performance was improved last quarter from a year ago mainly because the company shipped more chips that are used to manufacture LED-backlight LCD TVs,” an Everlight spokesperson said on Thursday.
“Most of our chip products were supplied to the company’s new Chinese and Japanese clients last quarter, and the shipment volume was estimated to increase significantly this quarter as the LED industry entered its peak season,” the spokesperson said, who declined to be named.
Everlight’s sales last month alone totaled NT$2.23 billion, up 18.46 percent month-on-month 20.66 percent year-on-year, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The New Taipei City-based company counts Taiwan’s panel maker AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) and contract TV maker AmTran Technology Co (瑞軒), as well as South Korea’s electronics giants Samsung Electronics Co and LG Electronics Inc, among its major clients.
“Everlight’s first-quarter sales result reflected improvements to the LED industry in general,” Primasia Securities Co analyst Filia Lin said by telephone on Friday in Taipei.
Due to growing demand for LCD TVs and LED lighting products, Everlight’s utilization rate was more than 90 percent last month, despite the effect of decreased working days and other factors, Lin said.
In terms of applications, backlight chips used in handsets remained Everlight’s largest sales source, of which sales accounted nearly 30 percent of the company’s total sales during the October-to-December period last year, Lin said.
Sales of chips used to make LED lighting products accounted for about 27 percent of Everlight’s total sales during the fourth quarter of last year, while sales of other backlight chips in LCD TVs accounted for between 15 and 20 percent, she added.
On March 26, Everlight chairman Robert Yeh (葉寅夫) told reporters at a corporate event that replacement demand for LCD TVs was surging because of the introduction of ultra-high-definition 4K2K TVs and the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
While Everlight was expected to achieve sequential growth in quarterly sales from this quarter on the back of rising demand for LCD TVs, the company forecast sales of its own LED lighting products would grow substantially this year from last year on the back of growing LED lighting penetration, Yeh said.
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