Epistar Corp (晶元光電) shares yesterday dropped 1.24 percent, underperforming the broader market’s 0.09 percent decline, after on Thursday night reporting a worse-than-expected net loss of NT$99.06 million (US$3.12 million) for last quarter.
The company reported net profit of NT$615.05 million a year earlier and NT$714.11 million in the prior quarter.
Epistar, the nation’s No. 1 LED chipmaker, lost NT$0.11 per share last quarter, compared with the market’s consensus estimate of NT$0.38 earnings per share, mainly due to falling average selling prices amid intensified market competition.
“The disappointing results were mainly due to a nearly 10 percent decline on the average selling prices for both raw and packaged chips due to strong competition from China and poor product mix,” Primasia Securities Co (?亞證券) analyst Filia Lin said in a note to clients yesterday.
Epistar shares closed at NT$27.85 in Taipei trading yesterday, having declined 55.72 percent so far this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
To safeguard shareholders’ interest, the company’s board on Thursday approved a plan to buy back 20 million of its shares at between NT$25 and NT$40 per share on the open market.
The company plans to spend up to NT$45.52 billion in the buyback scheme, Epistar said.
The scheme started yesterday and is to continue through Oct. 6, it said.
Company chairman Lee Biing-jye (李秉傑) in June told shareholders that Royal Philips NV’s price cut for LED bulbs spurred severe pricing competition in the US market last quarter, which promoted LED chip suppliers to lower their prices or redesign chips to meet demand from clients.
However, Lee said the price-cutting has stopped, as there is limited room for price concessions, and he expects Epistar’s core business to improve this quarter on the back of recovering demand for LED lighting products.
Despite Lee’s optimism for this quarter, Primasia said some negative factors remain in sight to put pressure on the firm’s business for the remainder of this year, such as international lighting brands’ demand for cheaper LED chips and pricing competition among Epistar’s peers.
“We believe Epistar may stay in a trough in the second half of this year, despite its solid capability on production capacity, and research and development,” Lin said.
Epistar’s revenue last month climbed 10.47 percent to NT$2.11 billion from NT$1.91 billion in June. However, the number was 24.23 percent lower than the NT$2.78 billion recorded in July last year, company data showed.
From January through last month, cumulative revenue totaled NT$15.52 billion, down 9.48 percent from last year’s NT$17.15 billion.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The US said it plans to help build a first-of-its-kind industrial hub in the Philippines to boost production of inputs crucial to US supply chains. The 4,000-acre hub is intended to be “a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing” and “an investment acceleration hub where the specific industrial activities are shaped by market demand,” the US Department of State said on Thursday. The project — touted as an “economic security zone” — would be within the Luzon Economic Corridor, a flagship economic project backed by the US and Japan on the main Philippine island. The project was also described as “the first artificial intelligence
RSS