Acer Inc’s (宏碁) after-sales service subsidiary Highpoint Service Network Corp (海柏特) yesterday said it is targeting double-digit percentage growth in revenue next year on the back of strong demand for payment devices.
The company also expects this year’s revenue to surpass last year’s NT$1.2 billion (US$38.3 million), which grew 32 percent year-on-year, Highpoint chairman Andrew Hou (侯知遠) said at a presentation in Taipei ahead of its over-the-counter market debut next month.
Highpoint has maintained double-digit revenue growth over the past three years, Hou said, adding that achieving similar growth this year “should not be a problem.”
Photo: Ou Yu-hsiang, Taipei Times
The company provides after-sales services for electronic devices and information technology products, authorized by original equipment manufacturers.
It has secured orders from two of the world’s top five payment gateway device makers, and winning another contract could further boost sales next year, Hou said.
Next year’s momentum is also expected to come from an upgrade cycle for payment gateway equipment — such as all-in-one terminals that integrate QR code and contactless payments — in Taiwanese and Southeast Asian markets, and planned expansion into other markets, he said.
Apart from after-sales services, Highpoint also offers value-added services for enterprise clients, such as installing tech equipment, and charging for after-sales services and hardware sales, company chief executive officer Jacky Lin (林俊男) said.
After-sales services carry a gross margin of about 20 percent, while value-added services have a margin of about 10 percent as the segment includes low-margin hardware sales, he said.
The company’s revenue in the first three quarters of this year totaled NT$846 million, down 4.4 percent from a year earlier, as its value-added services were affected by enterprises’ delays in capital expenditure, he said.
Overseas markets accounted for 70 to 80 percent of Highpoint’s revenue this year, the company said.
Gross margin during the period was 21.89 percent, rising 4 percentage points in the same period last year, as the company expanded its after-sales services business, Lin said.
Highpoint has operations in Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, with annual revenue growth in these markets reaching at least 10 percent, with some exceeding 30 percent, Hou said.
The company is evaluating whether to expand into India and China, as India’s infrastructure and policy procedures are relatively complicated, while the Chinese market is highly competitive, he added.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip
RSS