Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) yesterday said it is to acquire 7.692 million common shares in Vuzix Corp at US$1.30 per share as part of its long-term investment plans in the US-based maker of smart eyewear.
The share purchase plan was announced after the two companies in November last year entered into a partnership agreement to manufacture next-generation lightweight smart glasses with shipments slated to start later this year.
It is its first tranche of investment in Vuzix, Quanta said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing, adding that it would acquire preferred shares of Vuzix during the second and third tranches.
Photo courtesy of Quanta Computer Inc
Quanta’s offer of US$1.30 per share represents a premium of about 51 percent on Vuzix’s closing price of US$0.86 on Friday. US markets were closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday.
Figures for the second and third tranches have yet to be finalized, but would be less than US$10 million, Quanta said.
The company would hold less than a 19.2 percent stake in the NASDAQ-listed Vuzix after the three tranches are completed, with total investments not exceeding US$20 million, it added.
Vuzix, established in 1997 in Rochester, New York, initially made optical products for the military and the US Department of Defense, but shifted to developing consumer-grade virtual reality (VR) products and is now a leading supplier of smart glasses, and augmented reality (AR) and VR technologies and products.
The deepened partnership between the two firms underscores Quanta’s aim of delivering innovative smart glasses products for the broader markets using waveguides and optical display components sourced from Vuzix, the companies said.
Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said Quanta has been bolstering its technical capabilities in the VR and AR domains in the past few years, and its collaboration with Vuzix is aimed at improving its technology capabilities, providing comprehensive solutions and seizing opportunities in the flourishing virtual market.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS