Leading industrial PC maker Advantech Co (研華) on Friday reported record revenue and profit for this year’s first quarter, but said component shortages, as well as COVID-19 lockdowns and logistics constraints in China, would affect its revenue outlook in the second quarter.
“Benefiting from steady recovery from major markets and strong demand for new energy such as electric vehicles, solar and wind power, Advantech continuously outperformed in the first quarter of 2022,” Advantech chief financial officer and Eric Chen (陳清熙), who is also president of general management, said in a statement.
The company said its book-to-bill ratio remained high at 1.36 percent from January to March, and the overall delivery lead time is gradually improving, thanks to improving product sales amid a recovery in global demand.
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Advantech stands to benefit from smart factory upgrades driven by new infrastructure projects, with robust demand from renewable power and electric vehicle sectors, analysts said.
First-quarter revenue was NT$16.12 billion (US$546.81 million), up 2 percent quarterly and 22.5 percent annually, as the company’s embedded Internet of Things (IoT) group, applied computing group and service-IoT group reported strong sales in the first quarter, while the cloud-IoT group saw sales slightly decline partly due to component shortages, Advantech said.
North America and Europe registered sales growth of 32 percent and 31 percent from a year earlier respectively, while emerging markets recorded 70 percent rise during the three-month period, it said.
Net profit last quarter totaled NT$2.57 billion, up 13 percent from the previous quarter and 34 percent higher than a year earlier, it said.
Gross margin was 38.2 percent last quarter, compared with 38.11 percent in the previous quarter, but down from 39.58 percent a year earlier.
Earnings per share were NT$3.32, compared with NT$2.93 the previous quarter and NT$2.48 a year ago, company data showed.
Given a notable demand recovery, the company had planned to expand capacity by 30 percent by the end of last year, with new capacity likely to come online next year at the earliest.
Second quarter demand is expected to be solid based on new business opportunities in applications related to factory automation and energy conservation.
“However, the impacts from component shortages, the Kunshan lockdown last month and logistics constraints remain, which might affect second-quarter revenue by 8 percent to 10 percent,” as shipments would be delayed until later this year, Chen said.
“Advantech will leverage our capacities in Linkou [Taiwan] and Kunshan [China] to minimize overall impacts and maintain operational stability,” he said.
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