Phison Electronics Corp (群聯電子), a Taiwanese supplier of NAND flash memory controllers and modules, posted 18 percent growth in net profit last year as it benefited from robust demand and higher average selling prices, it said.
Net profit expanded to a record-high NT$5.76 billion (US$197 million), from NT$4.88 billion in 2016, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Earnings per share rose to NT$29.23 last year from NT$24.67 in 2016.
While revenue contracted 2.18 percent to NT$41.77 billion last year from NT$43.78 billion, gross margin rose to 27.41 percent from 21.16 percent, the company said.
Phison chairman Pua Khein-seng (潘健成) in early January said that net profit is likely to hit another high this year, dismissing speculation that the company would see its bottom line fall from last year.
The company has an advantage over its competitors in sourcing sufficient memory chips from its strategic partners, including Toshiba Corp, when supply constraints return during this year’s peak season, Pua said.
A prolonged scarcity of chip supply last year pushed prices for NAND flash memory chips up 300 percent from the previous year, he said.
In a separate company filing yesterday, Phison said the company’s board has approved a higher cash dividend distribution of NT$17 per common share, compared with last year’s NT$14.
That represented a dividend yield of 5.59 percent based on the stock’s closing price of NT$304 in Taipei trading yesterday.
The board also gave the go-ahead on a capital-raising program, the filing said, adding that the firm plans to issue as many as 18 million new shares via a private placement.
The proceeds are to be used to improve technology cooperation with partners and pursue new strategic alliances with local or overseas companies, the company said.
The new share offering would have a three-year lock period, it added.
Phison is scheduled to hold an annual shareholder’s meeting on June 8 to vote on the proposals.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS