Electronic components supplier Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) posted the best quarterly net profit in its history last quarter at NT$4.56 billion (US$140.63 million), as gross margin improved thanks to an increase in shipments of better-margin power supplies for artificial intelligence (AI) servers and cloud-computing data centers, it said yesterday.
Last quarter’s net profit rose 9 percent sequentially from NT$4.2 billion, or 7 percent annually from NT$4.24 billion. Earnings per share rose to NT$1.99 last quarter from NT$1.84 in the second quarter and NT$1.86 last year.
That was despite the company’s revenue growth falling short of expectations as high inflation, geopolitical tensions and a weak macroeconomy dampened consumer spending during the quarter ending Sept. 30, Lite-On said.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Revenue last quarter experienced sub-seasonal growth, Lite-On said.
However, the firm’s gross margin grew to an all-time high of 23.6 percent last quarter from 23.3 percent a quarter earlier and 19.5 percent a year earlier, which it attributed to optimized product portfolios.
Lite-On’s operating profit margin improved to 11.6 percent from 9 percent in the second quarter and from 9.5 percent a year earlier.
The company said it expects revenue to grow at a mild pace this quarter, compared with NT$39.96 billion last quarter, as demand for components used in notebook computers and some consumer electronics started to pick up slightly.
“Business in the fourth quarter should be relatively lukewarm compared with the company’s records in the past,” Lite-On president Anson Chiu (邱森彬) told investors yesterday.
“Overall, we are relatively optimistic about the company’s ability to register a stable growth in revenue and profit during the fourth quarter, though the macroeconomic outlook remains bleak,” Chiu said.
This quarter’s main growth drivers would be high-margin power supplies used in cloud-computing servers and automotive devices, Chiu said.
US auto workers and automakers are resolving their conflicts and the supply of graphics processing units used in AI servers is improving, which would help fuel some demand this quarter, he added.
Demand for information and communications technology and consumer electronics have apparently bottomed out, Chiu said.
Notebook computer sales expanded year-on-year in the third quarter, while desktop computer sales would post an annual increase in the first quarter of next year, he added.
Lite-On expects revenue for this year to hold steady compared with last year, Chiu said.
Next year, the company is pushing for mergers and acquisitions to stimulate revenue growth, he added.
Lite-On said it is deploying two production lines in Dallas, Texas, which would contribute NT$2 billion in revenue next year, Chiu said.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
NVIDIA PLATFORM: Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and a Taiwan site is to enter production next month, Nvidia wrote on its blog Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, yesterday said it is expanding production capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) servers based on Nvidia Corp’s Blackwell chips in Taiwan, the US and Mexico to cope with rising demand. Hon Hai’s new AI-enabled factories are to use Nvidia’s Omnivores platform to create 3D digital twins to plan and simulate automated production lines at a factory in Hsinchu, the company said in a statement. Nvidia’s Omnivores platform is for developing industrial AI simulation applications and helps bring facilities online faster. Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and the
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
RSS