TAIPEI: Inventec Corp yesterday reported better-than-expected net income for last quarter, driven by strong demand for handheld devices and its solar power products.
The company’s net income was NT$1.94 billion (US$59.05 million) last quarter, up 6.59 percent from last year’s NT$1.82 billion and 65.81 percent from NT$1.17 billion made in the prior quarter.
The figures indicate Inventec’s most profitable quarter in the past 10 quarters, according to the firm’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“The NT$105.42 billion sales income last quarter was the peak of this year and we hope this quarter would produce similar numbers,” Inventec chief financial officer Yu Chin-pao told an investor conference in the firm’s headquarters in Taipei.
Yu said that the company would do its best to maintain the performance of its core business this quarter, but there are some non-operating factors, such as swings in foreign exchange rates, which might affect the company’s profitability this quarter.
Inventec president Huang Kuo-chun said the firm’s notebook segment, which amounted to 49.9 percent of the firm’s total revenues last quarter, is expected to be driven by the steady demand for commercial notebooks.
“The outlook for consumer notebooks is still unclear at the moment,” Huang said.
The server segment that accounted for 35 percent of the company’s sales is to be flat from last quarter, he added.
The mobile devices segment, which includes Xiaomi Inc’s smartphone assembling business, is expected to climb from last quarter due to the client’s increasing demand, said David Ho, chief executive of Inventec’s handset subsidiary, Inventec Appliance Corp.
The overall profitability and sales of the mobile devices segment is better than last year, mainly due to the company’s efforts in adopting industrial automation, Ho said.
Sales next year would be driven by the robust demand for wearable products and smart home devices, Ho said.