Electronics manufacturer Qisda Corp’s (佳世達) operating performance would improve in the second half of this year as orders from customers are forecast to rebound significantly and gross margin is to continue rising, the company said yesterday.
Orders for displays and projectors are expected to gradually pick up in the second half of this year, while demand for networking and communications products, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) of things applications, are also likely to gain stronger momentum in the third and fourth quarters, Qisda said.
The company’s outlook for industrial computers in the second half of this year is also more optimistic after inventories return to healthy levels, it said.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
As a result, the company expects operations in the second quarter to be slightly better than the first, when the industry entered a low season.
It also projects revenue performance in the third and fourth quarters to follow the usual strong pattern, Qisda said in a statement released following its annual general meeting.
Regarding demand in various markets, recovery in China and Europe is lower than expected, while order momentum in Taiwan, the US and Southeast Asia is relatively strong, the company said.
Gross margin, a key profitability gauge, declined for two consecutive quarters to 16.01 percent in the January-to-March quarter, but Qisda chairman Peter Chen (陳其宏) said the figure would gradually rise in the following quarters, citing contributions from high value-added products and services.
High valued-added businesses — hospital operations, medical products, smart-business solutions, and networking and communications products — accounted for 40 percent of the company’s overall revenue in the first quarter, while the information technology business, mainly displays and projectors, contributed 47 percent to the total, company data showed.
Qisda’s consolidated revenue in the first quarter decreased 7.41 percent quarter-on-quarter and was down 7 percent year-on-year to NT$46.91 billion (US$1.45 billion).
Net profit fell 39.67 percent quarterly and was down 20.68 percent annually to NT$257 million, which translated into earnings per share of NT$0.13, the lowest since the first quarter of 2020 when the figure was NT$0.12, company data showed.
The revenue contribution from high valued-added businesses to the company’s total has increased from 12 percent in 2013 after 10 years of business transformation, which has also helped lift the company’s gross margin by nearly 6 percentage points over a decade, Chen said.
“Qisda will continue to accelerate investment in new businesses such as medical care and AI smart solutions to create long-term benefits for the group,” he said in the statement.
Shareholders yesterday approved the company’s proposed distribution of a cash dividend of NT$1.2 per share, representing a payout ratio of nearly 80 percent based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$1.51.
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