Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s No. 2 contract laptop computer manufacturer, yesterday said it expects tablets and televisions to be its main growth drivers this quarter, while notebooks and smartphones take a back seat.
“We expect tablet shipments to grow quarter-on-quarter for the remainder of the year, aided by clients’ new product launches this and next quarter,” a Compal investor relations official, who declined to be named, told the Taipei Times.
Compal’s tablet clients include Amazon.com Inc and Apple Inc.
The official said the company is also optimistic that its TV shipments would increase on a quarterly basis in the second half, with the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays boosting demand.
TV sales have also received a boost from its takeover of its Japanese client Toshiba Corp’s North American operations in January and European operations in June.
As for notebooks, which accounted for 73 percent of its total revenue of NT$199.03 billion (US$6.09 billion) last quarter, Compal gave a conservative outlook.
“We expect notebook shipments this quarter to grow by a single-digit percentage from last quarter’s 9.6 million units,” the official said, adding that whether Microsoft Corp’s Windows 10 could spur notebook replacement demand would depend on clients’ shipment requests this and next month.
Compal was also cautious about the outlook for smartphones, citing softer-than-expected demand in emerging markets this year, especially in the Chinese market, the official said.
The company is more optimistic about its smartphone outlook next quarter, when clients are scheduled to launch new handsets in time for the holiday season, she said.
Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) predicted Compal’s revenues would grow by a slower 3.8 percent to NT$206.63 billion this quarter from NT$199.03 billion last quarter.
“We foresee that the soft demand for PCs and smartphones would affect Compal’s sales growth this quarter,” Yuanta analyst Vincent Chen (陳豊丰) said in a note released on Tuesday last week.
Compal last week reported net income of NT$1.5 billion, or NT$0.35 per share, for last quarter, plunging 40.67 percent from a year ago and 25.37 percent from the previous quarter.
The figure missed consensus estimates of NT$2.29 billion.
Gross margin was 3.8 percent, lower than 3.9 percent a year earlier and 4.32 percent a quarter ago, according to the firm’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
In the first seven months of this year, cumulative sales totaled NT$457.29 billion, up 3.45 percent from last year’s NT$442.05 billion.
Compal dropped 2.43 percent to NT$18 in Taipei trading yesterday.
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