The president and chief executive of Texas Instruments Inc, which supplies chips used in more than half the world's cellphones, raised the company's profit expectations on Wednesday and said he expects strong growth in coming years.
Without offering an exact time frame, Rich Templeton said Texas Instruments sees gross profit margins, which reached 51 percent in the first quarter, reaching 55 percent.
"We believe it's something that could be achieved over the next few years," he said. "I do not know what the precise timing will be, but we'll hold ourselves accountable to try to strive to those types of levels."
The firm's shares surged US$1.51, more than 4 percent, to a 12-month high of US$36.68 in midday trading. Shares have ranged from US$26.77 to US$35.50 in the past year.
"Five years in a row now we've been able to outgrow the semiconductor market," said Templeton, speaking at the company's annual analysts meeting in a suburban Dallas, Texas, hotel. "We continue to increase the number of people we have working on new, smaller and creative areas that have great potential in the long term."
Last month, Dallas-based Texas Instruments topped Wall Street's earnings estimate, despite a 12 percent drop in first-quarter earnings.
The company also forecast second quarter revenue ranging from US$3.32 billion to US$3.60 billion on earnings of US$0.39 to US$0.45 per share. It plans to release a mid-quarter update June 11.
Templeton also touted the company's analog chip business, which brings in 40 percent of total sales, as a major source of growth in the coming years.
Texas Instruments is the market leader in analog chips but only has about 13 percent of the overall US$35 billion market, he said. "I think it is an opportunity we can continue to build on and we can put together what could turn out to be the most unique semiconductor company in the world as we go into the next decade."
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS