Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), one of the main assemblers for Apple Inc’s iPhone handsets, yesterday reported weaker-than-expected monthly sales for last month due to soft demand for consumer electronics products.
Sales dropped 20.54 percent to NT$409.65 billion (US$12.22 billion) last month, from a record-high NT$515.56 billion a year ago. Last month’s figure also represented a 20.8 percent fall from November sales of NT$517.51 billion.
“The demand for the communications and computing segments was good, but the demand for consumer electronics products was relatively weak,” Hon Hai said.
The communications segment refers to the firm’s smartphone assembly business, while the consumer electronics segment includes tablet assembly, the firm said.
Hon Hai’s sales for last quarter reached NT$1.43 trillion, missing the market’s consensus estimate of NT$1.47 billion and down 4.66 percent from the previous year’s NT$1.5 trillion.
The company declined to comment if demand for iPhone 6S handsets was softer than that for the iPhone 6, launched a year earlier, saying it would not discuss an individual client’s business.
Hon Hai said its cumulative revenue for last year grew 6.42 percent annually to NT$4.48 trillion, but the increase was below market expectation for 10 percent growth. In 2014, the company's revenue increased by an annual rate of 6.53 percent.
Analysts have forecast Hon Hai’s revenue for this quarter will be lower than the NT$1.01 trillion made in the same period last year due to a high base of comparison and seasonal factors.
Separately, Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which makes MacBooks and Apple Watches for Apple, yesterday posted 9.34 percent annual growth in sales for last quarter to NT$275.15 billion, thanks to a rising contribution from the cloud-computing segment.
Last quarter’s sales remained flat from the prior quarter, the firm said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. For the whole of last year, total sales increased 8.74 percent to NT$1 trillion from NT$926.32 billion in 2014, Quanta said.
The company said demand in the cloud-computing segment, which includes wearable device assembly, helped offset the weakening notebook computer demand last year.
Meanwhile, contract notebook makers Compal Electronics Co (仁寶), Wistron Corp (緯創) and Inventec Corp (英業達) also released sales results for last quarter, showing declines from a year earlier due to overall weakness in the notebook industry.
On a quarterly basis, the three companies’ sales rose from the third quarter of last year on the back of improving demand from notebook clients, companies said.
However, Compal, Wistron and Inventec said they expect their notebook shipments this quarter to drop from a quarter ago because of seasonal weakness.
Wistron said its notebook shipments would fall by a double digit percentage quarterly.
Compal’s sales of NT$234.15 billion last quarter dropped 4.97 percent annually, but grew 8.47 percent quarterly. Wistron’s revenue of NT$174.06 fell 0.46 percent year-on-year, but climbed 14.2 percent quarter-on-quarter, while Inventec’s revenue of NT$110.04 billion in the past quarter fell 2.33 percent from a year earlier, but increased 4.38 percent from a quarter ago.
Overall, Compal’s annual sales of NT$847.22 billion for last year and Wistron’s annual revenue of NT$623.27 billion grew from a year earlier, but Inventec saw its annual sales declined 9.23 percent to NT$395.46 billion.
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