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.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
RSS