BizLink Holding Inc’s (貿聯控股) second-quarter profit surged from a year earlier and the previous quarter as sales hit a record high driven by demand for factory automation, capital equipment, high-performance computing and electric vehicles, the interconnect solutions provider said in a statement on Friday.
Net income last quarter grew 112.72 percent year-on-year and 109.58 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$1.17 billion (US$38.72 million), or earnings per share (EPS) of NT$7.68, BizLink said.
Consolidated revenue in the April-to-June period rose 99.02 percent annually and 19.68 percent quarterly to NT$13.96 billion, while gross margin and operating margin rose to 25.97 percent and 11.7 percent respectively, it said.
Photo courtesy of BizLink Holding Inc
“The COVID-19 lockdown in China affected our site in Kunshan, which was down for about three weeks in April, and impacted sales in the information technology, data communications and automotive segments, but we ramped up production in May and June to compensate for this situation,” BizLink chief executive officer Felix Teng (鄧劍華) said in a conference call.
“The market has presented even more challenges in the past few months, from inflationary and recessionary fears to rising energy prices. However, BizLink’s ability to address customer needs quickly was key to our performance in the second quarter,” Teng said.
If a steep drop in copper prices beginning in June continues, it would affect BizLink’s electrical appliance business and its new German business unit INBG in the second half of this year, he said.
BizLink completed the acquisition of industrial solutions unit INBG from Leoni AG in January, he said, adding that the unit cannot meet all customer demand due to limited capacity and persistent supply chain issues.
Silicon Valley-headquartered BizLink, the sole supplier of wiring harnesses for battery management systems in Tesla Inc’s electric vehicles, said sales generated by its industrial applications segment accounted for 38 percent of total sales last quarter, followed by the information technology and data communications business’ 26 percent, the automotive segment’s 21 percent and the electrical appliances segment’s 14 percent, while 1 percent came from other segmants, including telecom equipment and medical devices.
The industrial applications segment continued to see rising orders from the company’s four major capital equipment customers last quarter, Teng said, adding that it had not seen order cuts or postponements in the past quarter.
The information technology and data communications segment’s contribution to overall sales grew last quarter on the back of continued orders for high-performance computing components, which might surpass the contribution of docking stations toward the end of this year, the firm added.
Teng said electric vehicle orders fell sequentially last quarter due to the lockdowns in China in April.
However, the situation has fully recovered since then, and the company continued to ramp up production at its US and Mexican sites, he said.
As for the electrical appliances business, customer forecasts had been adjusted downward given the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Teng said, adding that new projects remain in the pipeline albeit developing at a slower pace than before.
In the first half of the year, net income was NT$1.73 billion, up 101 percent from a year earlier, or EPS of NT$11.46, while revenue rose 94.9 percent to NT$25.63 billion, BizLink said.
“As we look into the second half of the year, we are watchful of constant changes in the macroenvironment and are taking action to reduce their impacts, but realize that some are beyond our control,” Teng said.
BizLink would invest strategically to grow its business scale and gradually shift its focus to higher-margin, more value-added projects, he said, adding that it is planning to be more selective in terms of customers.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and