Contract notebook computer maker Wistron Corp yesterday said it expects total shipments of its products across the board to be flat from last quarter after reporting a strong annual growth in earnings for last quarter.
“Overall, we are more optimistic in the second half of this year because of the traditional peak season and the upcoming launches of the Windows 10 operating system and Intel Corp’s Skylake processor,” a Wistron official said by telephone.Microsoft Corp’s new operating system and Intel’s latest processor are expected to hit the market in July and August, respectively, Wistron said.
The company’s notebook computer shipments, which accounted for 47 percent of its total revenue last quarter, are forecast to stay flat from last quarter’s 4.7 million units, while smart devices, which contributed 11 percent of total revenue, might be lower than last quarter, the official said.Shipments of TVs, displays, servers and other products are also predicted to be flat or increase slightly from the prior quarter, the official said.
JPMorgan Securities Ltd is also less upbeat about Wistron’s sales and margin outlook this quarter.With the company’s iPhone-assembly business also slowing down this quarter because of model transitions, Wistron’s revenue might drop slightly to NT$149.17 billion (US$4.89 billion) this quarter from NT$150.7 billion last quarter, the brokerage said in a note on May 6.
“We see no upside factors to Wistron’s margins this quarter due to a lack of catalysts,” JPMorgan analyst William Chen said. Wistron said after writing-off the inventory of a specific product for a client in the final quarter of last year, the company’s financial results returned to a normal-level performance last quarter.
In the January-to-March quarter, Wistron reported strong annual growth in net income to NT$723 million, compared with NT$342 million a year earlier because of a lower base last year. The figure surged 24.86 percent from the previous quarter’s NT$579 million.Earnings per share were NT$0.3, higher than NT$1.5 per share a year earlier and NT$0.23 per share a quarter ago.
The company’s board yesterday approved a proposal to distribute cash dividend of NT$1.2 and a stock dividend of 3 percent based on last year’s earnings of NT$3.58 billion, or NT$1.5 per share. That translates into a cash payout ratio of 80 percent, higher than the cash payout ratio of 71.71 percent in the previous year.The planned cash dividend suggests a yield of 4.87 percent, based on Wistron’s closing price of NT$24.6 yesterday.
