Smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday said the company is expected to turn profitable this quarter on the strong sales momentum of its latest flagship handset, the HTC One M8, which was launched in March.
The company’s sales last month rose 12.7 percent year-on-year to NT$22.07 billion (US$731.4 million), and HTC projects that sales for this quarter would increase by between 96.37 percent and 111.48 percent sequentially to a range of between NT$65 billion and NT$70 billion, HTC chief financial officer Chang Chia-lin (張嘉臨) said in a conference call.
That is only 0.01 percent lower than the NT$70.7 billion reported in the same period of last year, after the company started selling its flagship M7 handset.
Photo: Bloomberg
Chang said gross margin would reach between 21.3 percent and 22 percent this quarter, compared with 21 percent last quarter and 23.2 percent a year earlier.
The company is expected to post earnings per share of between NT$2.21 and NT$3 this quarter, he said. HTC registered a net loss per share of NT$2.28 for last quarter.
“The M8 is selling better than the M7 from sell-in and sell-out perspectives,” Chang said.
The product is expected to outsell the M7, he added.
HTC has overhauled its internal coordination to avoid issues such as shipment delays or component shortages from happening to the company’s new products this year, he said.
Taoyuan-based HTC also pins hopes on its mid-tier Desire-series models, as it aims to make a turnaround from emerging markets including China and India, Chang said.
The company expects both the M8 and the Desire 816 to be its two top sales drivers through the second half of the year, he said.
“This is a good start for us and we are very excited about the future,” he added.
Despite efforts in cost control, HTC will continue spending on marketing this year to strengthen consumers’ brand awareness and ward off competition from Chinese rivals, Chang said.
Chang did not comment on HTC’s new product lines after being asked if the company plans to sell tablets or wearable devices in the near future.
HTC launched its first and so far only tablet product, the HTC Flyer, in February 2011. The tablet is equipped with a 7-inch display and powered by Google Inc’s Android operating system. However, sales of the product were officially discontinued in December that year.
However, Chang confirmed that some of HTC’s smartphones are being made by contract manufacturers, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
“We have been outsourcing production. We think that once our assembly partners attain a manufacturing standard that meets our requirements, we can let them produce [our smartphones],” Chang said.
“The outsourced products have been well-received by consumers,” Chang added, but declined to identify the products or name the assemblers.
He said HTC’s outsourcing volume was not as high as 50 percent of its overall shipments, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, although he could not immediately give an estimate of the actual figure.
According to the Wall Street Journal report, Taiwan’s Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) and China’s Wingtech Group (聞泰) have been assembling at least three of HTC’s new Desire mid-tier phones, starting in spring this year.
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
RSS