Major iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported record sales for last month amid robust demand for Apple Inc’s products, while rival Pegatron Corp (和碩) saw sales drop slightly from October.
Hon Hai said in a statement that its consolidated sales reached NT$514.79 billion (US$16.5 billion) last month, up 12.85 percent from last year’s NT$456.18 billion and 9.76 percent from the previous month’s NT$468.99 billion.
In the first 11 months of the year, consolidated revenue totaled NT$3.69 trillion, representing an increase of 6.75 percent from NT$3.46 trillion for the same period last year, Hon Hai said.
Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券) said it expects Hon Hai to report a significant sales increase this quarter, with iPhone shipments forecast to advance by 3 percent to 32 million units from last quarter.
Hon Hai also produces televisions for Sony Corp, PCs for Hewlett-Packard Co and other electronics products for other brands.
“We thus forecast fourth-quarter sales of NT$1.4 trillion, up 42 percent quarter-on-quarter and 2 percent year-on-year,” Fubon analyst Arthur Liao (廖顯毅) said in a research note.
PEGATRON
Pegatron reported revenue of NT$118.14 billion for last month, increasing 30.64 percent from last year’s NT$90.43 billion, but declining slightly from the previous month’s NT$120.02 billion.
Consolidated revenue for the first 11 months of the year rose 4.96 percent annually to NT$904.93 billion, Pegatron said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
QUANTA
Separately, Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world’s largest contract laptop manufacturer, saw sales drop 17.8 percent year-on-year and 1.4 percent month-on-month to NT$80.83 billion last month.
From January through last month, Quanta’s consolidated sales totaled NT$837.48 billion this year, increasing 6.58 from last year’s NT$785.81 billion.
The company, which also manufactures Apple’s MacBook, said it shipped 4.7 million notebook computers last month, its second-highest volume this year.
Quanta’s notebook shipments for this month might show a single-digit decline from last month due to clients’ inventory adjustment, it said.
The company aims to ships 41 million notebooks this year and forecasts a double-digit sales increase next year for its wearable devices — especially the Apple Watch.
Industry watchers said the company had increased recruitment in China in the past two months, preparing for the mass production of the Apple Watch.
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