Advantech Co Ltd (研華), the world’s biggest industrial PC maker, yesterday said that shareholders have approved the addition of Wesley Liu (劉蔚志), son of company founder K.C. Liu (劉克振), to its board of directors.
Wesley Liu heads systems integration unit Advantech Intelligent Services Co Ltd (研華智誠).
In his nine years at the company, he was also an industrial control engineer, sales representative and assistant manager.
Photo: Chuo Yi-chun, Taipei Times
Viewed as part of his father’s succession plan, Wesley Liu said that he would focus on expanding Advantech’s core business and uphold company values.
Advantech said that its management team remains unchanged, with Eric Chen (陳清熙) as president of general management, Miller Chang (張家豪) as president of embedded Internet of Things and Linda Tsai (蔡淑妍) as president of industrial Internet of Things.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has over the past four months posted consecutive annual declines in monthly sales.
“We were affected by the coronavirus early, as more than 90 percent of our sales come from overseas,” K.C. Liu told shareholders at an annual general meeting in Taipei.
Pointing to China’s rapid recovery from the pandemic, he said that the company’s performance this quarter should not be affected by the crisis and revenue would recover from the first quarter.
“Market demand from China was very strong last month, as well as this month ... [partly] thanks to the government’s stimulus policies,” Chang said.
Although the US and European markets continue to present challenges, Advantech said that it has seen a surge in demand from the healthcare sector.
“[Our] gaming [business] was heavily dampened, as casinos closed down [due to the pandemic] ... [but] we received a lot of rush orders from the healthcare sector,” Chen said, adding that the company would soon introduce new artificial intelligence solutions for the sector.
Advantech forecast a sequential sales increase this quarter of between 19.6 percent and 24.9 percent to between US$450 million and US$470 million.
Shareholders also approved a dividend distribution of NT$8.8 per share, implying a dividend yield of 2.99 percent based on Advantech’s closing price of NT$294 yesterday.
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