FocalTech Systems Co (敦泰電子), a touch panel controller designer, said that losses narrowed last quarter as gross margin rebounded into the positive after an inventory write-off.
Losses totaled NT$194 million (US$6.22 million) in the three-month period ending in March, compared with losses of NT$2.65 billion in the prior quarter and net profit of NT$10 million in the first quarter of last year, the company said in a financial statement.
Gross margin last quarter climbed to 20.96 percent, compared with 8.35 percent in the prior quarter and 20.1 percent a year earlier, it said.
“Last year was terrible for the company. We had not stepped out of the shadows in the first quarter, as we were still in the process of qualifying existing chips at new foundry fabs,” FocalTech chairman Genda Hu (胡正大) told an investors’ conference on Wednesday. “The worst is over.”
FocalTech expects momentum to grow quarterly in the remainder of the year, thanks to better capacity availability and clients’ adoption of next-generation integrated driver and controller (IDC) chips, he said.
The recovery would be across the board, with better gross margin and higher revenue for this quarter, he added.
The company has solved a capacity crunch, which had capped its chip shipments and sales growth over several quarters, by shifting some chip production to a “friendly foundry partner,” Hu said.
“With the capacity constraint problem fixed in the first quarter, we expect [chip] shipments to grow significantly from the second quarter,” Hu said.
Some clients are scheduled to launch new smartphones in the third quarter that would be equipped with its two new and advanced IDCs, which help reduce screen bezels and manufacturing costs, FocalTech said.
The Hsinchu-based company counts China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為), Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Vivo Communication Technology Co (維沃) among its clients.
FocalTech said that it expects IDC shipments to grow between 30 percent and 40 percent this quarter from 15 million units last quarter.
IDCs contributed about 40 percent to its revenue last quarter, company data showed.
Revenue last quarter declined 19.8 percent quarterly and 37.2 percent annually to NT$4.09 billion due to foundry capacity constraints and slumping smartphone demand, the company said.
FocalTech said that it has made substantial progress in developing fingerprint sensors and has started shipping them to clients including Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), HTC Corp (宏達電) and China’s Transsion Holdings Ltd (傳音控股).
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest 5G chip supplier, saw its ranking rise by one notch to No. 7 last year among world semiconductor vendors, as it benefited from the rapid 5G smartphone uptake in China after Huawei Technologies Co (華為) was forced to exit the market, Gartner Inc said in a report yesterday. MediaTek’s revenue soared 58.8 percent to US$17.45 billion last year from US$10.99 billion in 2020, outpacing the global semiconductor industry’s growth of 25 percent, according to Gartner’s tally. That gave MediaTek a 3 percent market share. The Hsinchu-based chip company ranked No. 8 in 2020, behind Texas Instruments
Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端疫苗) yesterday reported higher neutralizing antibody levels in people who were given its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster after two AstraZeneca doses, the company said. In a trial of 200 participants who received Medigen’s COVID-19 vaccine, neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 grew by 5.7 times one month after being administered, Taoyuan General Hospital said. Medigen said that the results have been submitted to medRxiv, an online platform for researchers to share complete but unpublished papers. Another trial conducted by National Taiwan University Hospital showed that among 45 participants who received three doses of the Medigen vaccine,
BEATING EXPECTATIONS: With electric vehicles and the metaverse on the horizon, the company predicts a solid first quarter as customers stockpile inventories Key iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) could achieve an “unprecedented” performance in the first quarter, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said. “Our performance in the first quarter might surpass how we fared in the past few years, and it is likely that some staff at key sites might only get two days off during the Lunar New Year holiday,” Liu said in prepared remarks for the company’s annual workers’ party yesterday. Manufacturers around the world are racing to build up inventory out of fear that outbreaks of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 and other uncertainties could further disrupt their supply
Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd (怡和洋行), a diversified Asia-based group whose businesses span property, transport, retail and luxury hotels, is considering strategic options for its restaurant unit, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Singapore-traded conglomerate is weighing a sale of Jardine Restaurant Group (怡和餐飲集團), a wholly owned subsidiary that operates KFC and Pizza Hut franchises in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The subsidiary also runs Pizza Hut restaurants in Myanmar, according to its Web site. Jardine Matheson has held preliminary discussions with advisers, the people said, adding
RSS