Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), the nation’s third-largest liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker, yesterday gave a bearish outlook for the third quarter, saying demand would be slower than usual as consumers hesitated to buy electronics amid a weak macro economy.
The Taoyuan-based company said major PC makers cut back orders to panel makers last month to digest excessive inventory, but said it was seeing orders recover slowly this month.
“We believe demand in the third quarter will not be as strong as in the same period last year. Last year, customers scrambled to buy as many panels as they could,” company president Chiu Chuang-yi (邱創儀) told reporters yesterday. “This year, we’ll still see a peak season, but it may not be as strong as it used to be.”
People were curtailing their spending on electronics — especially large TVs — because of rising oil prices and slower economic growth, dragged down by the US subprime credit crisis, Chiu said.
Some panel makers have started reducing, or plan to reduce, equipment usage to cope with diminishing demand.
Chunghwa Picture, however, said it had no plan to follow suit, citing limited impact on overall supply in light of the small scale of its output.
Its equipment utilization rate is currently at around 90 percent, Chiu said.
Reflecting dwindling demand and a supply glut, computer panel prices are expected to decline by an additional 3 percent to 10 percent this month from last month, the latest report by market researcher DisplaySearch said.
Monitor panels will suffer the brunt of the decline, it said.
The price for a mainstay 19-inch LCD panel is expected to fall 8 percent, or US$10, to US$115 per unit this month from last month, the Austin, Texas-based researcher said.
“The price forecast is different from the factual situation,” Chiu said.
He projected a slower-pace price decline of US$5 per unit for monitor screens.
Chunghwa Picture generated a large portion, or about 70 percent, of its revenues of NT$3.9 billion from selling computer monitor panels in the first quarter.
Prices for TV panels slid more slowly, ranging from 1.3 percent to 3 percent, DisplaySearch said.
Because of escalating oversupply and an uncertain future in the industry, Chunghwa Picture said it had slowed down talks with partners on plans to build a next-generation plant.
“We may reach an agreement with our partners in the third quarter,” Chunghwa Picture chairman Lin Wei-shan (林蔚山) said yesterday.
Chunghwa Picture originally planned to conclude the talks by end of last month.
Shares of Chunghwa Picture declined 2.13 percent to NT$8.28, performing better than shares of bigger rivals AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), which plunged by 2.59 percent and 5.16 percent, respectively.
Restaurant chain Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) today announced it is to close 14 stores in northern China, completely exiting the market by the end of October. Beijing Hengtaifeng Catering Co (北京恆泰豐餐飲), which operates Din Tai Fung restaurants in northern China, said its 20-year operating license expires this year. As the board was unable to reach a consensus on continuing operations, its 14 restaurants in the region are to close by Oct. 31, it said. The company apologized for the inconvenience and disappointment the news would cause among its customers, and said it would provide compensation for its workers. “We continue to be optimistic about
EXPANDING: The European Commission has contributed 5 billion euros in state aid to TSMC’s 12-inch wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, which broke ground on Tuesday Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Saturday said that it has received a total of NT$62.5 billion (US$1.95 billion) in subsidies from China and Japan since 2022. In the first half of this year, TSMC received NT$7.96 billion in subsidies from China and Japan after receiving about NT$47.55 billion last year and obtaining NT$7.05 billion in 2022, financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed. The company, which makes about 90 percent of the world’s high-end semiconductors, said the subsidies were used to finance its investments in Kumamoto, Japan, and Nanjing, China. TSMC owns a 12-inch wafer fab in
STRATEGIC SHIFT: Diversifying away from the volatile flat-panel industry, AUO aims to boost sales contribution from non-panel business to half of total revenue by 2027 AUO Corp (友達) yesterday said it has agreed to sell its idled manufacturing facility and land in Tainan to Micron Technology Inc for NT$7.4 billion (US$231.8 million) as the company shifts strategy to reduce the impact from the boom-and-bust flat-panel display industry. The company expects to book NT$4.17 billion in disposal gains from the sale, it said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. The Tainan factory produced color filters used in monitors, notebook computers and flat-panel TVs before being shut down last year, as AUO sought to optimize its asset utilization. The company has been striving to diversify and broaden its business
Micron Technology Inc has reportedly set its sights on two facilities owned by flat-panel maker AUO Corp (友達) after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) recently clinched a deal to buy a facility and equipment from Innolux Corp (群創), another major flat-panel maker. Micron, the world’s third-largest memorychip maker, is expected to purchase two AUO plants in Tainan to expand its advanced chip packaging and testing services and high-bandwidth memory production, local media reports said. The two plants were shut down in August last year and AUO is seeking to dispose of the facilities, the reports said. They are expected to cost Micron