TAIPEI: Electronics contract manufacturer Inventec Corp yesterday posted NT$40.5 billion (US$1.23 billion) in sales for last month, its strongest result in 18 months, driven by early shipment requests for commercial notebook computer models.
Last month’s sales rose 10.5 percent from last year’s NT$36.77 billion and were 23.85 percent higher than the NT$32.7 billion posted for August.
Sales for last quarter increased by 4.02 percent from a year earlier and 16.23 percent over the previous quarter to NT$105.41 billion, company data showed.
The company produces PCs, notebook computers, servers, smartphones and smart devices, with major customers including Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc and Xiaomi Corp.
The company competes against Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, Quanta Computer Inc, Pegatron Corp, Compal Electronics Inc and Wistron Corp in the original design and manufacturing of consumer electronics.
“Inventec shipped 2 million notebook computers last month, increasing by 300,000 units from the previous month, which was the key for the revenue growth,” chief financial officer Yu Chin-pao said in an e-mailed statement.
Yu said the company’s quarterly shipments of main product lines — notebook computers, smart devices and servers — all climbed by double-digit percentages from the quarter prior.
Shipments from the server business were better than the firm’s previous forecast of single-digit percentage growth, mainly thanks to clients’ early shipment requests for China’s National Day holiday.
However, given the high base built for last month, Inventec expects shipments of notebook computers this month would be lower than last month’s 2 million units, while shipments of servers would be flat compared with last month, Yu said.
The smart devices segment would continue to grow this month, he said.
Looking forward, Yu said the company expects revenues this quarter to be flat or decline from last quarter’s NT$105.41 billion, because notebook computer revenue is expected to drop slightly due to soft demand.
Inventec’s revenue in the first three quarters of this year was NT$285.41 billion, down 11.62 percent from the same period last year.
