Innolux Corp (群創), the LCD panel manufacturing arm of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday said it plans to double its revenue within two years by reviving its electronics assembly business and developing next-generation display technologies.
The production revamp is aimed at minimizing the impact on the company of the LCD industry’s boom-and-bust cycle, Innolux said.
That could also open the door to future cooperation between Innolux and Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) companies, including Hon Hai and Sharp Corp, it added.
“Since Innolux no longer invests substantially on building new flat-panel [capacity] as Hon Hai and Sharp are doing now, I believe there will certainly be collaboration opportunities between us,” chairman Wang Jyh-chao (王志超) told a media briefing after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting at its headquarters in Miaoli County.
“We will more than welcome [the chance] to [source] panels from Hon Hai and Sharp for [ TV] assembly,” Wang said.
As Innolux has just resumed its electronics assembly lines, the company has yet to decide whether to make TVs for Hon Hai and Sharp, Wang said.
In March, the flat-panel maker launched a production restructuring plan after its financial status returned to healthy levels. The company had reduced its debt-to-equity ratio to zero last quarter and paid off about NT$200 billion (US$6.58 billion) in debts over a three-year period.
When Innolux was established in 2003, it sold LCD displays and manufactured monitors equipped with its displays for other companies. In 2010, the company spun off its monitor assembly business and sold it to parent company Hon Hai to focus on LCD production following a three-way merger.
Innolux this year started making TVs at its smart factories in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China, Wang said.
The company plans to manufacture 1 milion TVs this year and expects the figure to jump to about 6 million next year and to 10 million in 2019, president and chief operating officer Robert Shiao (蕭志弘) told reporters.
That will help Innolux double its revenue in 2019 from last year’s NT$287.1 billion, according to the company’s forecast.
Innolux also plans to continue developing new display technologies.
Instead of joining its peers in developing micro-LED technology, Innolux is investing in mini-LED technology, said Ting Chin-lung (丁景隆), head of the company’s technology development center.
Mini-LED technology is similar to micro-LED technology, but easier to make, as it uses only 10,000 tiny LEDs to light up a flexible display, compared with 20 million to 30 million for micro-LED, Ting said.
“Our mini-LED technology will be ready in about one year. Then we can start to engage with potential customers,” Ting said.
Innolux shareholders yesterday approved a plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$0.1 per common share, based on last year’s net profit of NT$1.87 billion, or earnings of NT$0.19 per share.
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
TECH SECURITY: The deal assures that ‘some of the most sought-after technology on the planet’ returns to the US, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said The administration of US President Joe Biden finalized its CHIPS Act incentive awards for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), marking a major milestone for a program meant to bring semiconductor production back to US soil. TSMC would get US$6.6 billion in grants as part of the contract, the US Department of Commerce said in a statement yesterday. Though the amount was disclosed earlier this year as part of a preliminary agreement, the deal is now legally binding — making it the first major CHIPS Act award to reach this stage. The chipmaker, which is also taking up to US$5 billion
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
RSS