Fitipower Integrated Technology Inc (天鈺科技), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) driver IC design arm, expects revenue to hit another record-high this year, fueled by growing demand for display driver ICs used in ultra-high-definition TVs and gaming notebook computers.
In the first eight months of this year, Fitipower’s revenue jumped 22.35 percent to NT$5.71 billion (US$185.43 million), compared with NT$4.67 billion in the same period last year, it said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“Following such growth pace, Fitipower should enjoy good [revenue] growth this year,” chairman Young Lin (林永杰) told an investors’ conference in Taipei yesterday.
Fitipower is scheduled to debut on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in the middle of next month at the earliest.
“We are growing together with the [Hon Hai Technology] group (鴻海科技集團), which is expanding its business scope to 5G and [ultra-high-definition] 8K [TV panels] as well as Internet of Things,” Lin said.
Fitipower last year made NT$7.17 billion in revenue, of which 87 percent came from display driver ICs used in flat panels for TVs and handsets.
The company counts Hon Hai’s display subsidiaries Sharp Corp and Innolux Corp (群創) and China’s BOE Technology Group (京東方) among its clients.
Power management ICs accounted for the remaining 13 percent of its revenue, with a broad customer base that includes Huawei Technologies Co (華為), Dell Technologies Inc and HP Inc, Fitipower said.
The company is planning to tap into the burgeoning business of a new-generation single chip that integrates a driver and a controller, known in the industry as a touch controller with display driver integration (TDDI).
The company plans to ship its new TDDI products for customer qualification by the end of this year, Lin said, taking on the nation’s top two players — Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠科技) and FocalTech Systems Co (敦泰電子).
Fitipower manufactures a new generation of TDDI, which is only half the size of those made by existing suppliers and is more cost-efficient, he said.
The company also has strong patent coverage to protect its technologies and to avoid legal disputes, Lin said, in an apparent reference to the legal battle between Novatek and FocalTech over patent infringement allegations.
Fitipower owns 89 patents related to display driver ICs and power management ICs, he said.
Commenting on the escalating trade war between the US and China, Lin said the company does not see any direct impact from the dispute, as only a small portion of its ICs are exported to the US via China.
Besides, most consumer electronics are exempted from US President Donald Trump’s new US$200 billion tariff list, he said.
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
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
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