Smartphone camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) yesterday posted a 0.63 percent month-on-month increase in revenue for last month, reversing a 16.73 percent monthly decrease in the previous month, but still declining 6.15 percent from a year earlier.
Consolidated revenue increased to NT$3.15 billion (US$107.2 million) last month from NT$3.13 billion in April, the company said in a statement, as major customers began to restock inventories ahead of new product launches in the third quarter.
The company reported revenue of NT$3.35 billion in May last year.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
High-margin lenses for cameras of 20 megapixels or more accounted for 10 to 20 percent of its shipments last month. Lenses for products of 10 megapixels or more comprised 50 to 60 percent of purchases, while lenses for 8-megapixel products made up 10 percent and lenses for products with lower resolutions contributed 30 to 40 percent, Largan data showed.
Cumulative revenue in the first five months of this year decreased 11.6 percent to NT$16.41 billion, from NT$18.56 billion a year earlier, the company said.
The global smartphone market has shown signs of weakness this year as lockdowns in cities in eastern China and supply chain bottlenecks continue to weigh on the industry, while a weak macro environment also placed a dent in consumer demand for consumer electronics such as handsets, industry watchers have said.
International Data Corp (IDC) last week forecast that global smartphone shipments would fall 3.5 percent annually to 1.31 billion units this year, a downward revision from its previous forecast of an annual 1.6 percent increase, while Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) predicted global shipments would decline 2.3 percent to 1.295 billion units this year, from 1.326 billion units last year.
Largan chief executive officer Adam Lin (林恩平) on April 14 told investors that revenue for last month and April would be lower than March’s NT$3.76 billion due to seasonal factors and component shortages.
Order momentum is expected to come in stronger this month than last month as more Chinese cities ease their restrictive COVID-19 prevention measures and companies resume operations, Largan said.
Largan, whose customers include Apple Inc, Sony Corp, Samsung Electronics Inc and Huawei Technologies Co (華為), is scheduled to hold its annual general meeting on Wednesday, with shareholders expected to sign off on the company’s financial report for last year and re-elect board directors.
Lin is expected to shed light on the company’s outlook for the second half of the year after the meeting.
As a leading maker of optical lens modules, Largan also produces voice coil motors, contact lenses and sleep monitoring systems.
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
READY TO BUY: Shortly after Nvidia announced the approval, Chinese firms scrambled to order the H20 GPUs, which the company must send to the US government for approval Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) late on Monday said the technology giant has won approval from US President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The news came in a company blog post late on Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run China Global Television Network in remarks shown on X. “The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said. “Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us