Largan Precision Co (大立光), the nation’s leading handset camera lens manufacturer, yesterday posted a 25.77 percent quarterly decline in net profit for last quarter to NT$4.99 billion (US$168.7 million), reaching its weakest level in nine quarters due to sagging demand.
Largan in the first quarter made NT$6.72 billion in net profit, the company said.
Earnings per share in the last quarter dropped to NT$37.19 from NT$50.1 in the previous quarter.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
The Taichung-based company yesterday also booked a nonoperating loss of NT$536.42 million for the last quarter, reversing a nonoperating income of NT$414.64 million in the first quarter.
Gross margin fell slightly to 68.63 percent, compared with 69.8 percent in the first quarter, the company’s financial statement showed.
In an investors’ conference, Largan CEO Adam Lin (林恩平) gave conservative projections.
“I think July and August are going to be about the same as June,” Lin said.
Largan last month posted monthly revenue growth of 6.98 percent to NT$4.14 billion, ending two straight months of declines.
Regarding the company’s revenue outlook for September and October, Lin said: “I cannot see that far.”
Lin blamed softening demand rather than market share loss to competitors for the drop, saying: “Demand is down. Demand for high-specification products, especially” was down, Lin said.
When asked about the prospects of Chinese competition increasing next year, Lin said: “I do not know.”
Institutional investors in the conference said they were curious about the company’s plans for new continuous or fixed optical zoom lens products for smartphone cameras.
Lin said it would be a daunting task from a technical perspective to create the lenses with the limiting form factor of mobile phones and to achieve the high level of precision required to make the lens.
“Everybody wants this, but it is just hard,” Lin said.
The company’s freeform lens technology is in the testing phase, he said, adding that he is optimistic that by the end of the year, Largan would begin shipping the product.
Largan would keep pace with the research and development of new products, “but it is up to the clients whether they get designed” into new products, Lin said.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
INVESTOR RESILIENCE? An analyst said that despite near-term pressures, foreign investors tend to view NT dollar strength as a positive signal for valuation multiples Morgan Stanley has flagged a potential 10 percent revenue decline for Taiwan’s tech hardware sector this year, as a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar begins to dent the earnings power of major exporters. In what appears to be the first such warning from a major foreign brokerage, the US investment bank said the currency’s strength — fueled by foreign capital inflows and expectations of US interest rate cuts — is compressing profit margins for manufacturers with heavy exposure to US dollar-denominated revenues. The local currency has surged about 10 percent against the greenback over the past quarter and yesterday breached