Hiwin Technology Co (上銀科技), which produces linear guideways and ballscrews, on Monday said its net income rose 15.03 percent year-on-year to NT$2.26 billion (US$72.5 million) last year, or NT$9.16 per share, on the back of the rising demand for industrial automation.
The company also announced the purchase — at a cost of more than NT$100 million — of a 41.93 percent stake in Hsinchu-based Luren Precision Co (陸聯精密), which manufactures gear-cutting tools, spin pumps and machinery, in a bid to further develop industrial automation.
Hiwin chairman Eric Chuo (卓永財) told a news conference that the company is making steady progress in industrial automation, and has started to ship new industrial and medical robots this quarter.
Hiwin ships more than 100 industrial robots per month, Chuo said.
With production running at full capacity, the company recently rented two plots of land in Taichung, with plans to increase production lines for its industrial robot parts, he said.
“This [procurement] is the last piece of puzzle for us to complete our plan in industrial automation advances,” Chuo said.
Industrial automation accounted for 8 percent of Hiwin’s total revenue last year, and the figure is predicted to grow to 10 percent this year, fueled by growing industrial robot shipments, he added.
“Sales for this quarter will outperform last year’s NT$3.01 billion, given rising orders for Hiwin’s ballscrews and linear guideways since the beginning of this year,” Chuo said.
Sales for next quarter would be better than this quarter, and this year’s revenue would outpace last year’s NT$15.08 billion, he said.
On the back of the solid demand for industrial automation, JPMorgan Securities Ltd yesterday forecast that Hiwin’s revenue for this year would grow by 15 to 20 percent over last year’s.
However, JPMorgan said Hiwin’s gross margin could be affected by the weak euro in the near term.
The firm’s gross margin was 37 percent in the previous quarter, 1 percentage point lower than JPMorgan’s estimate.
As Europe accounted for 20 to 25 percent of Hiwin’s revenues, JPMorgan said “every 10 percent depreciation in the euro against the New Taiwan dollar would erode Hiwin’s gross margin by 1 percentage point.”
The good news is that Hiwin has considered raising prices to offset the weak euro influence, JPMorgan said.
Hiwin shares plunged 6.12 percent to NT$253 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which lost 0.27 percent.
The company’s board on Monday approved a proposal to distribute cash dividends of NT$3.2 and a stock dividend of 3 percent per share. That represents a cash dividend yield of 1.26 percent.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
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
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).
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
RSS