Electronics manufacturer Qisda Corp (佳世達) yesterday said revenue performance in the second half of the year would be flat from the first half, as third-quarter sales came in lower than expected amid weak demand for information technology (IT) products and networking and communication devices.
The company expects its high valued-added businesses — including hospital operations, medical products, smart business solutions and networking and communications products — to provide stable support to its revenue this quarter, with demand for IT products, mainly monitors and projectors, slowly picking up, it said in a presentation document released following the company’s earnings conference.
The company remains confident that profit performance in the second half of the year would be better than the first half, Qisda chairman Peter Chen (陳其宏) said, citing continued improvement in gross margin.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Gross margin, a key profitability gauge, increased 2.2 percentage points year-on-year to 16.6 percent in the July-to-September quarter, and rose 2.3 percentage points to 16.3 percent in the first three quarters of the year, both the highest in 20 years, which Chen attributed to contributions from high value-added products and services.
“After revenue from high value-added businesses accounted for more than half of the top line last year, the company’s next goal is to see those businesses contribute more than half of the bottom line by 2027,” he said.
As for next year, Chen said the visibility of the industry remains unclear, given factors such as the war between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and sticky inflation worldwide. As a result, the company is to hold a cautiously optimistic view about its revenue and earnings outlook next year, he said.
The company’s consolidated revenue last quarter decreased 3.34 percent quarter-on-quarter and was down 16.13 percent year-on-year to NT$50.37 billion (US$1.56 billion) due to slower-than-expected recovery in monitor shipments and delayed delivery of networking and communications devices such as Internet protocol cameras, routers and switches.
Net profit grew 17.3 percent quarterly to NT$1.2 billion, which translated into earnings per share of NT$0.61, due to an increase in non-operating gains. But net profit still fell 81.1 percent annually, the company said.
In the first three quarters, revenue dropped 16.76 percent year-on-year to NT$152.93 billion and net profit decreased 67.67 percent to NT$2.55 billion, with earnings per share of NT$1.3, it said.
The IT business accounts for 43 percent of the company’s overall revenue in the first three quarters, followed by smart business solutions at 16 percent, networking and communications segment at 14 percent, medical business at 12 percent, high value-added services at 8 percent and 7 percent for other products, the company said.
Semiconductor shares in China surged yesterday after Reuters reported the US had ordered chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, which investors believe could accelerate Beijing’s self-reliance efforts. TSMC yesterday started to suspend shipments of certain sophisticated chips to some Chinese clients after receiving a letter from the US Department of Commerce imposing export restrictions on those products, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed source. The US imposed export restrictions on TSMC’s 7-nanometer or more advanced designs, Reuters reported. Investors figured that would encourage authorities to support China’s industry and bought shares
FLEXIBLE: Taiwan can develop its own ground station equipment, and has highly competitive manufacturers and suppliers with diversified production, the MOEA said The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday disputed reports that suppliers to US-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) had been asked to move production out of Taiwan. Reuters had reported on Tuesday last week that Elon Musk-owned SpaceX had asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan given geopolitical risks and that at least one Taiwanese supplier had been pushed to relocate production to Vietnam. SpaceX’s requests place a renewed focus on the contentious relationship Musk has had with Taiwan, especially after he said last year that Taiwan is an “integral part” of China, sparking sharp criticism from Taiwanese authorities. The ministry said
US President Joe Biden’s administration is racing to complete CHIPS and Science Act agreements with companies such as Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co, aiming to shore up one of its signature initiatives before US president-elect Donald Trump enters the White House. The US Department of Commerce has allocated more than 90 percent of the US$39 billion in grants under the act, a landmark law enacted in 2022 designed to rebuild the domestic chip industry. However, the agency has only announced one binding agreement so far. The next two months would prove critical for more than 20 companies still in the process
CHANGING JAPAN: Nvidia-powered AI services over cellular networks ‘will result in an artificial intelligence grid that runs across Japan,’ Nvidia’s Jensen Huang said Softbank Group Corp would be the first to build a supercomputer with chips using Nvidia Corp’s new Blackwell design, a demonstration of the Japanese company’s ambitions to catch up on artificial intelligence (AI). The group’s telecom unit, Softbank Corp, plans to build Japan’s most powerful AI supercomputer to support local services, it said. That computer would be based on Nvidia’s DGX B200 product, which combines computer processors with so-called AI accelerator chips. A follow-up effort will feature Grace Blackwell, a more advanced version, the company said. The announcement indicates that Softbank Group, which until early 2019 owned 4.9 percent of Nvidia, has secured a
RSS