Hurt by sluggish demand for chips used in smartphone displays and massive inventory write-offs, touchpanel controller supplier FocalTech Systems Co (敦泰電子) yesterday posted NT$2.65 billion (US$86.09 million) in losses for last quarter.
The results were not only a reversal from the net profit of NT$76 million posted for the third quarter, but a drastic increase from the NT$270 million loss recorded in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Gross margin dipped into the negative territory for the first time in the firm’s history, to minus-8.35 percent, compared with 24.4 percent the previous quarter and 20.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017, the company’s financial statement showed.
Last year as a whole, losses swelled to NT$2.49 billion, compared with the NT$103 million loss posted for 2017, the statement said.
Customers last quarter scaled back orders for the firm’s three major products — integrated driver and controller (IDC) chips, display touch controllers and display driver ICs — due to a weakness in smartphone demand and the US-China trade dispute, the company said.
FocalTech also booked NT$2 billion in write-offs for the fourth quarter as a significant market share loss eroded its book value of goodwill and caused a decline in related intangible assets.
The company blamed its market share loss in the IDC chip market on improper competition and wafer supply constraint.
IDC chips were once the firm’s star product and a growth driver.
Its financial problems are not over yet, as it will take time for customers to certify its new chips, and the industry is facing seasonal slow demand for smartphones in the first quarter, chairman Genda Hu (胡正大) told an investors’ conference.
The company expects to see a marked recovery in the second half of the year, he said.
It also expects to see an increase in IDC chip shipments this year, thanks to rising penetration rate for the chip, and it has secured designs from customers for two of its new-generation IDC chips this quarter.
It is tapping into the new AMOLED segment by engaging with panel customers to supply display drivers, and expects to start mass production of driver ICs for AMOLED later this year, it said.
Jih Sun Securities Investment Consulting Co (日盛投顧) forecast FocalTech’s sales for this quarter would be NT$1.61 billion, down 21.12 percent from the previous quarter and 38.35 percent lower than a year earlier.
It revised downward its earnings per share forecast for this year to NT$0.38, compared with the NT$1.57 it estimated earlier, according to a research note on Monday last week.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
RSS