E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技) yesterday said it lost NT$603 million (US$19.96 million) last quarter due to seasonally weak demand.
The firm, which supplies e-paper displays for Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle e-reader series, was in the red in the first three quarters last year, but made net income of NT$1.01 billion in the fourth quarter.
Last quarter’s losses widened from losses of NT$490 million in the first quarter of last year.
The world’s biggest e-paper display supplier reported NT$2.96 billion in revenue last quarter, almost half that of the previous quarter.
“The numbers were not great,” Yuanta Investment Consulting (元大投顧) analyst George Chang (張家麒) said in a research note.
He had forecast that E Ink would lose NT$516 million last quarter.
E Ink posted an operating loss of NT$1.21 billion for last quarter, which also exceeded Chang’s estimate of NT$760 million.
As the company is likely to take some extra reserves in its ongoing restructuring, E Ink may break even or significantly shrink its operating loss in the near future, Chang said.
Separately, touchpanel maker Young Fast Optoelectronics Co (洋華光電), which counts Samsung Electronics Co as its top client, posted an improved quarterly loss of NT$212 million for last quarter from a quarter ago.
Young Fast lost NT$1.31 billion in the fourth quarter last year.
It said in March that prices would stabilize this quarter after a 20 percent annual decline last year.
The company made a net profit of NT$177 million in the first three months of last year.
On Wednesday, rival Wintek Corp (勝華) reported narrowed quarterly losses of NT$1.5 billion, compared with losses of NT$3.83 billion in the fourth quarter.
That marked the eighth straight quarterly losses for Wintek.
Losses widened from the NT$840 million loss posted in the first quarter of last year. Wintek has said it expects operations to improve significantly in the second half of this year from the seasonally slow first half.
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