Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻) is optimistic about its business outlook this year as it has clear order visibility for the next six months, the garment and fabric supplier said yesterday.
The company said its orders are mostly confirmed for the first half of this year and it has begun to receive new orders for the third quarter.
In addition, the company has seen stronger order growth from mid-sized and high-priced brand clients, it said, adding that the addition of six new customers last year would help contribute about 15 percent to its revenue this year.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Eclat, which counts global brands such as Nike Inc, Gap Inc, Target Corp, Lululemon Athletica Inc and Under Armour Inc among its top customers, has fabric operations in Taiwan and Vietnam, as well as garment plants in Vietnam, Cambodia, Lesotho, China and Indonesia.
The company said its garment plants have all been running at full capacity, with its outsourced capacity contribution estimated to rise to 30 percent this quarter, from 25 percent last quarter, indicating solid order recovery.
Eclat’s net profit in the fourth quarter last year was NT$1.39 billion (US$44.1 million), up 76.69 percent annually, or earnings per share of NT$5.1.
The increase was buoyed by higher revenue during the October-to-December quarter, which grew 11.3 percent annually to NT$8.49 billion, while gross margin and operating margin improved annually to 32.51 percent and 22.83 percent, respectively, company data showed.
Despite a notable sales recovery and a reversal of declining profit during the final quarter of last year, last year’s overall net profit was still down 23.77 percent annually to NT$5.18 billion and full-year revenue fell 22 percent to NT$30.79 billion due to customers' inventory adjustments.
Earnings per share were NT$18.87 last year, down from NT$24.75 in 2022, but gross margin increased by 3.59 percentage points to 31.44 percent and operating margin rose 1.5 percentage points to 21.28 percent, company data showed.
The increases in margins last year were mainly due to higher factory utilization, better production efficiency, improved product mix and inventories of low-priced raw materials, Eclat vice president for finance and accounting Roger Lo (羅仁傑) said.
Last year, the garment business accounted for 62 percent of the company’s total sales, with the fabric business taking the remaining 38 percent, Eclat vice chairman Richard Wang (王樹文) said.
Looking ahead, Wang said he is not pessimistic about the North American market this year and expects growth momentum to be better than last year, as customers have started to place long-term orders instead of rush orders.
In addition, large brands and channel customers remain active in placing orders, while order momentum from medium-sized brand clients is also quite strong, he said.
The company plans to expand capacity at its Indonesian plants this year and expects new production lines to make a substantial revenue contribution from the second quarter of next year, he added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the