Shares of Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) — one of the nation’s leading integrated circuit packaging and testing services providers — yesterday appeared resilient amid downward pressure in the broader market following the firm’s announcement of a strong performance for last year, traders said.
The relatively stable stock price also reflected a rally of its American depositary receipts (ADRs) on Wall Street overnight and optimism toward Siliconware’s earnings outlook as investors took cues from the company’s upbeat forecast for this year, the dealers added.
Siliconware shares fell 0.19 percent to NT$52.4 yesterday.
The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange was down 0.88 percent at 9,426.90 points, while the bellwether electronics sub-index was down 1.22 percent at 378.84 points.
“The stock outperformed the broader market, which declined after losses on Wall Street overnight. Investors seemed willing to hold Siliconware shares in the wake of its 2014 earnings,” KGI Securities (凱基證券) analyst Phil Chu said.
In an investors’ conference, Siliconware reported that its net profit for last year rose 99.1 percent from a year earlier to NT$11.73 billion, with earnings per share (EPS) of NT$3.74.
Last year’s net profit and EPS both represented seven-year highs.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Siliconware’s net profit fell 7.5 percent from the previous quarter to NT$3.01 billion, with an EPS of NT$0.97, reflecting a seasonal slowdown, while its gross margin for the October-to-December period rose 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier to 26.9 percent.
“In recent sessions, foreign institutional investors have geared up to buy the stock not only on expectations of the strong 2014 results, but also on optimism toward the company’s earnings outlook,” Chu said.
According to Chu, foreign institutional investors bought more than 23 million Siliconware shares on the main board.
He said that a 5.63 percent rally of Siliconware’s ADRs overnight also resulted from foreign institutional interest in the stock.
“Siliconware chairman Bough Lin (林文伯) gave an upbeat forecast for this year, which helped the stock fend off downward pressure on the broader market today,” Chu said.
Lin said during the investor conference that due to the continued seasonal downturn, Siliconware’s sales for the first quarter of this year could fall between 1 percent and 6.6 percent from the previous quarter.
Chu said that the forecast beat market expectations of a double-digit sequential decline.
Lin said that after the first quarter, Siliconware is expected to see its sales pick up for the rest of the year, adding that the company has set a goal to outpace sales growth of the entire IC packaging and testing business, which could post sales growth of 7 to 8 percent this year.
“Although Siliconware shares are resilient for the moment, investors should keep alert over volatility on Wall Street, which could affect the Taipei market and individual stocks. Siliconware could face stiff technical resistance at around NT$55.80 in the near term,” Chu said.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS