E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s largest e-paper display supplier, yesterday said it expects moderate revenue decline in the second half of the year, as some e-reader customers have become more conservative about consumer spending amid concerns over US tariffs.
The company’s second-quarter revenue reached a peak for the year to date at NT$10.63 billion (US$354.81 million), driven by front-loading and model transition to color screens from monochrome in the e-reader and e-note markets, it said.
“The market sentiment shows that most people are taking a wait-and-see attitude ... and are relatively conservative about the second half, especially about the consumer sector,” E Ink chairman Johnson Lee (李政昊) told an online investors’ conference.
Photo: CNA
E Ink’s order intake might weaken in the fourth quarter, but it expects an improvement in the first quarter next year, given that most customers are optimistic about the industry’s growth trend, Lee said.
The fourth quarter is a low season for the electronic shelf label (ESL) business, but customers, including system integrators and retailers, are positive about ESL adoption in the long term, he said.
Overall, the company is optimistic about its full-year revenue growth after sales in the first seven months jumped 38.43 percent annually to NT$22.58 billion, it said.
E Ink’s production lines are all fully utilized, which makes it hard to catch up with demand, the company said.
It expects its new production line, called H5, to enter volume production this month or next month after a delay early this year due to technology bottlenecks, it said.
E Ink is investing in its research-and-development team in San Jose, California, and is considering building a pilot production line there as part of the company’s increasing investments in the US, Lee said.
Despite foreign exchange losses of NT$2.14 billion in the second quarter due to the drastic appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, E Ink’s net profit in the quarter grew 47 percent to NT$2.97 billion from NT$2.02 billion in the same quarter last year.
Earnings per share rose to NT$2.58 from NT$1.76 for the same period.
Gross margin last quarter jumped to 60.3 percent from 47.25 percent a year earlier thanks to a favorable product mix and improved operational efficiency, it said.
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
RSS