Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s fourth-largest PC vendor, yesterday reported its second quarterly net loss in a row, but said its operating loss in the third quarter had greatly improved from the second quarter.
In the three months that ended on Sept. 30, the company’s net loss was NT$1.1 billion (US$36 million), or a loss of NT$0.43 per share, Acer said in an e-mailed statement.
The figure represented a significant improvement from a net loss of NT$6.79 billion, or a loss of NT$2.57 per share, in the second quarter. On an annual basis, however, that compares with a net income of NT$4.29 billion, or earnings per share of NT$1.61, in the third quarter last year, company data showed.
Over the past two quarters, Acer has been working to adjust its inventories and fine-tune its business strategy in the face of declines in netbook and notebook sales because of the impact of tablet devices, such as the iPad.
The company is also undergoing restructuring pains following the departure of a number of key executives, such as former chief executive Gianfranco Lanci, former global marketing vice president Gianpiero Morbello and the former president of its handheld intelligence group, Aymar de Lencquesaing.
On a positive note, the company’s consolidated revenue increased 14.9 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$117.3 billion in the third quarter, although the figure was still nearly 30 percent lower than a year earlier.
“Acer’s third-quarter consolidated revenue grew from the second quarter, with channel inventories significantly reduced to a reasonable level,” the statement said.
Operating loss in the third quarter also dropped 81.4 percent to NT$1.32 billion from NT$7.09 billion in the second quarter, after the company wrote off US$150 million of inventories in Europe and on its account receivables in Spain in the second quarter, as well as earmarking another US$30 million for layoff-related expenses.
“Comparing the two quarters’ operating losses on the same bases, by deducting the one-time sales allowance and senior executive severance fees that took place in the second quarter, the margin of the third-quarter operating loss has improved from the second quarter,” Acer said in the statement.
In the first three quarters of the year, Acer’s consolidated revenue totaled NT$347.2 billion, down 27.7 percent from a year ago. The company said operating losses amounted to NT$6.48 billion in the first three quarters, while net losses were NT$6.71 billion, or a loss of NT$2.55 per share.
The company did not provide a sales guidance or an earnings outlook for the current quarter.
Acer chairman and chief executive J.T. Wang (王振堂), who said in August that the company might not be able to break even this year, may shed some light on the progress of the company's restructuring and any impact from potential supply-chain disruption because of the floods in Thailand on Friday next week during its quarterly conference with investors and analysts.
Acer shares fell 1.24 percent to close at NT$35.80 before the announcement of the third-quarter results. The stock has plunged 60.27 percent since the beginning of the year, compared with the benchmark index’s decline of 19.15 percent during the same period.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS