Flat-panel maker AUO Corp (友達) yesterday posted its smallest quarterly loss in about five quarters as customers restocked ahead of shopping seasons, and demand for TVs and notebook computers emerged from two years of corrections.
AUO’s net losses improved to NT$975 million (US$30.07 million) in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with losses of NT$10.91 billion in the second quarter and NT$10.43 billion in the third quarter last year.
Gross margin rose to 7.6 percent last quarter from 3.1 percent the previous quarter and minus-14.6 percent in the same period last year.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
Shipments climbed 3 percent sequentially last quarter, driven by seasonal demand, the company said.
Average selling prices jumped 5 percent quarter-on-quarter to US$329 per square meter, the first uptick since the first quarter.
This quarter, shipments of computer and TV panels would dip about 15 percent sequentially as restocking demand among customers is approaching an end, AUO said.
The upward trend of average selling prices would extend into this quarter with a quarterly increase of 2 to 3 percent, the company said.
“The seasonal restocking demand is to phase out in the second half of the fourth quarter,” AUO chairman Paul Peng (彭?浪) told investors during a quarterly meeting yesterday. “Consumer demand for end devices is expected to remain weak for a period of time because of lingering macroeconomic pressure. Key interest rates in the US are still very high.”
The bright spot is that demand and supply dynamics in the flat-panel industry are moving in a positive direction, with channel inventory returning to healthy levels, while TV and PC brand vendors are taking a prudent approach to manage inventory, Peng said.
Most panel manufacturers have adjusted their equipment utilization to match demand, he said.
AUO said its factory utilization was 80 percent last quarter, but it planned to lower it this quarter as demand declines.
The company yesterday trimmed its capital spending plan for this year by about 14 percent to NT$30 billion, compared with an estimate of NT$35 billion three months ago.
AUO said it would only spend on next-generation display technology, not on expanding capacity.
With years of investment, its micro-LED technology would be commercialized by the end of this year, with shipments to start for use in smart watches, it said.
The next applications for the new display technology would be premium TVs and vehicles, AUO said.
To facilitate the production of micro-LED panels, AUO’s board of directors yesterday approved an investment of NT$700 million to build a 6-inch micro-LED chip-on-carrier production line in Taoyuan’s Longtan District (龍潭) with subsidiary PlayNitride Inc (錼創).
AUO yesterday provided additional details about its ambition to become a major supplier of intelligent cockpit operation systems by acquiring Germany’s Behr-Hella Thermocontrol GmbH.
AUO supplies flat panels used in vehicles, as well as modules integrated with touch and human-machine-interface (HMI) features.
It said it expects revenue from displays with HMI features to make up about 25 percent of its revenue from automotive displays in 2025, up from 10 percent this year, driven by the uptake of electric and autonomous vehicles.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
RSS