Largan Precision Co (大立光), the nation’s leading handset camera lens maker, on Saturday reported a 28.87 percent year-on-year increase in consolidated revenue for the first quarter of this year to NT$14.58 billion (US$44.06 million).
The figure surpassed market expectations, with Capital Investment Management Corp (群益投顧) forecasting NT$14.3 billion and SinoPac Securities Investment Service Corp (永豐投顧) projecting NT$13.77 billion.
However, the figure still fell 19.4 percent from the previous quarter’s NT$18.21 billion as the industry entered its slow season, analysts said.
Photo: David Chang, EPA-EFE
Largan, a technology leader in the high-end smartphone camera lens market, reported earnings per share of NT$194.17 last year, the highest since 2019, driven by trends such as higher camera resolution migration, and growing adoption of periscope and telephoto lenses.
Beyond smartphones, the Taichung-based company has also tapped into new sectors, including the humanoid service robot market, where it has begun sending plastic lens samples to several customers.
Largan has also begun designing camera lenses for robotic arms used in factory automation, executive officer Adam Lin (林恩平) said at an earnings conference on Jan. 9.
The company said that revenue for this month would be lower than last month’s NT$4.89 billion due to seasonal factors.
Largan is to hold an earnings conference on Thursday to release its financial results for the last quarter and provide sales guidance for this quarter. The company is also expected to shed light on lens technology trends for foldable phones, slimmer handsets and artificial intelligence-powered devices.
The market is also expected to focus on the company’s plans for production capacity strategy and its response to the newly imposed tariffs by US President Donald Trump.
As a key supplier to Apple Inc, Largan has been drawn into broader concerns about potential supply chain disruptions.
Apple last week saw the largest two-day loss in shareholder value on record following Trump’s tariff announcement, amid fears about supply chain disruption and the impact on its profit outlook.
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
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150