Shares of Wistron Corp (緯創) yesterday plunged 3.36 percent to close at NT$27.30 in Taipei trading, reflecting investors’ disappointment with the company’s weaker-than-expected earnings performance for last quarter.
The closing price fell below Wistron’s 30-day moving average of NT$28.75, with 22.84 million shares changing hands, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Wistron, one of Apple Inc’s iPhone assemblers, on Friday reported net profit of NT$545 million (US$18.07 million), or NT$0.22 per share, for last quarter.
That represented a 62.4 percent drop from the previous quarter’s NT$1.45 billion, but was up 42.4 percent from NT$383 million in the same period last year, company data showed.
Despite the annual growth in earnings, Wistron’s gross margin dropped to a historic low of below 4 percent last quarter. It contracted by 1.91 percentage points annually and 0.51 percentage points quarterly to 3.78 percent.
Operating margin also dipped to its lowest level in seven quarters at 0.29 percent, down 0.84 percentage points annually and 0.78 percentage points quarterly.
Wistron attributed the weak margin performance to the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation against the US dollar and increasing shipments of lower-margin smart devices last quarter.
“The product mix and a stronger NT dollar had a negative impact on Wistron’s margin during the January-to-March quarter,” a Wistron investor relations official said by telephone.
Despite the pressure on margin from a rising currency, Wistron booked foreign-exchange gains of NT$444 million due to its hedging strategy, the official said.
Analysts said the NT$444 million exchange gains suggested that Wistron’s core businesses only contributed NT$101 million to the net income of NT$545 million last quarter.
“That reflected the weak profitability of Wistron’s core businesses, including notebook computers, servers and smartphones, last quarter,” an analyst who declined to be named said by telephone.
Wistron expects its notebook shipments to climb by a single-digit percentage this quarter from last quarter’s 4.5 million units, the official said.
Server shipments are also expected to rise by a single-digit percentage from last quarter’s 480,000 units, the official added.
The company reported revenue of NT$59.34 billion for last month, which surged by 33.52 percent from last year’s NT$44.44 billion.
Revenue in the first four months of the year expanded 27.13 percent annually to NT$227.75 billion, its filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS