Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠), which makes driver ICs for LCD panels, yesterday said its net profit last quarter grew 34 percent annually to NT$2.13 billion (NT$68.53 million), or earnings per share (EPS) of NT$3.5, marking the best quarterly earnings in about 11 years.
The company made NT$1.58 billion, or EPS of NT$2.6, in the second quarter of last year.
On a quarterly basis, net profit rose 8.12 percent from NT$1.97 billion.
The Hsinchu-based company said revenue rose 8.12 percent quarterly to NT$16.31 billion from NT$14.95 billion, matching its forecast of NT$16.1 billion to NT$16.6 billion in May, when it said higher penetration of new TDDI chips and rising demand for driver ICs for high-definition and thinner organic LED panels would fuel growth.
About 600 million smartphones worldwide would be equipped with TDDI chips this year, representing a penetration rate of nearly 40 percent, Novatek president Steven Wang (王守仁) told investors on May 7.
That would be a significant jump from a penetration rate of about 25 percent last year, when 400 million premium smartphones were equipped with TDDI chips, Wang said.
Novatek expects that TDDI chip shipments grew 20 percent quarterly to 60 million units during the quarter that ended on June 30, from 50 million in the previous quarter, he said.
Shipments of driver ICs used in active-matrix organic LED panels would double to 6 million units in the second quarter from a quarter earlier, he added.
In the first half of this year, Novatek ‘s revenue rose 31.69 percent to NT$31.25 billion, with net profit surging 63.8 percent to NT$4.09 billion, or EPS of NT$6.73.
FIVE NEW FABS: An acquisition of Siltronic would boost GlobalWafers’ market share from 17 to 30 percent, easily surpassing Japanese rival Sumco’s 25 percent GlobalWafers Inc (環球晶圓) yesterday said it is in final talks to acquire Germany-based Siltronic AG in a 3.75 billion euro (US$4.5 billion) deal, which might help it compete with its closest rival Sumco Corp of Japan. The acquisition would be the fifth for GlobalWafers since 2008, as it has grown to become the world’s No. 3 supplier of silicon wafers through such deals. GlobalWafers, which has a 17 percent market share, would see its market position greatly elevated to 30 percent when combined with Siltronic’s 13 percent, according to a presentation Siltronic gave to its investors at a quarterly conference in August. Sumco
With the speed cryptocurrency is emerging as the millennial generation’s alternative asset of choice in India, it is hard to imagine that just two years ago a couple of blockchain pioneers were briefly in police custody. Sathvik Vishwanath and Harish BV, cofounders of a then five-year-old start-up, were arrested in late 2018. No, they had not pulled off a shady initial coin offering. Their “crime” was that they put up a kiosk in a mall in Bangalore where customers could swap bitcoin, ether or ripple for cash or vice versa. That was the whole point of unocoin, their crypto token exchange.
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Qualcomm Inc expects global shipments of 5G smartphones to more than double to between 450 million and 550 million units next year from this year, driven by increasing 5G network deployment worldwide and broader adoption of 5G technology beyond smartphones, a company executive told a virtual news conference yesterday. The San Diego-based company said that more than five times more telecoms have commercially launched 5G services in the first 18 months of the 5G era, compared with wireless technology transitions to previous generations. The momentum is to pick up speed in 2022, with the shipment volume of 5G-ready smartphones projected to reach
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