Catcher Technology Co (可成科技), which makes metal casings for Apple Inc’s MacBook Air notebooks and iPad Mini tablets, yesterday reported that its first-quarter net profit fell 23.9 percent annually to NT$2.98 billion (US$98.69 million) due to lower non-operating income.
Earnings per share were NT$3.97 in the January-to-March period, compared with NT$5.22 per share a year earlier.
Despite a 18.8 percent increase in operating expenses, Catcher’s operating income grew 9.5 percent annually to NT$3.2 billion last quarter, mainly because the company’s sales expanded 12.8 percent from a year earlier, chief financial officer James Wu (巫俊毅) said in an earnings conference call.
However, due to lower-than-expected non-operating income, including interest and foreign exchange gains, Catcher’s pretax profit shrank 17 percent to NT$3.85 billion last quarter from a year ago, when it generated NT$1.72 billion in non-operating income, he said.
GROWTH GOALS
“Our sales are likely to take off beginning in this quarter, as most clients entered new product cycles last month,” Wu said.
“Achieving 15 percent sequential growth in sales this quarter should be possible for us,” chairman Allen Hung (洪水樹) said, echoing Wu and describing Catcher’s smartphone business as its main sales driver.
Sequential growth of 15 percent would require Catcher’s sales to expand from NT$10.41 billion last quarter to NT$11.97 billion this quarter, which would be its second-highest level ever. In the fourth quarter of last year, sales hit NT$13.11 billion.
Gross margin for this quarter is expected to be sustained between 41 and 45 percent as a result of a larger business scale, Wu said.
The company’s first-quarter gross margin was 41.3 percent.
To cope with growing orders for smartphone casings, Catcher on Tuesday last week announced that it plans to purchase NT$5 billion of computer numerical control (CNC) machines.
CAPITAL INVESTMENT
The new CNC machines would be installed at Catcher’s plants in China’s Suzhou and Taizhou cities beginning in August, and they are expected to boost the company’s total capacity by 20 percent this year from the previous, Hung said.
The number of CNC machines is to be increased to about 20,000 units this year from last year’s 16,000 units, including the 2,000 units purchased earlier this year, he added.
Other than Apple, Catcher also supplies casings to Nokia Oyj, Sony Corp and HTC Corp (宏達電), as well as PC brands including Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc, among others.
Sales of metal casings used in smartphones and tablet devices accounted for 60 percent of Catcher’s total sales last quarter, while sales of notebook casings composed the remaining 40 percent, Hung said.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
STILL HOPEFUL: Delayed payment of NT$5.35 billion from an Indian server client sent its earnings plunging last year, but the firm expects a gradual pickup ahead Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC vendor, yesterday reported an 87 percent slump in net profit for last year, dragged by a massive overdue payment from an Indian cloud service provider. The Indian customer has delayed payment totaling NT$5.35 billion (US$162.7 million), Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told an online earnings conference. Asustek shipped servers to India between April and June last year. The customer told Asustek that it is launching multiple fundraising projects and expected to repay the debt in the short term, Wu said. The Indian customer accounted for less than 10 percent to Asustek’s
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
LEAK SOURCE? There would be concern over the possibility of tech leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday stayed mum after a report said that the chipmaker has pitched chip designers Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Broadcom Inc about taking a stake in a joint venture to operate Intel Corp’s factories. Industry sources told the Central News Agency (CNA) that the possibility of TSMC proposing to operate Intel’s wafer fabs is low, as the Taiwanese chipmaker has always focused on its core business. There is also concern over possible technology leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺)
RSS