Coretronic Suffers 11% Decline in Combined Revenue for Q2

Fretted by a drastic drop in its shipment of backlight modules for LCD panels amid sagging market demand for LCD TVs, Coretronic Corp., a Taiwanese maker of the product, suffered a 11% decline in combined revenue of NT$18.437 billion for the second quarter of this year compared to a quarter earlier. 

Mainly affected by sluggish customer demand for backlight modules used in LED-backlit LCD TVs caused by weak economic outlooks in the U.S. and Europe and the March 11 massive earthquake in Japan, the company shipped only 15.46 million units of the product and hence saw the sales plummet 22% quarterly to only NT$10.723 billion in the second quarter. 

The company also reported combined net operating income of NT$294 million and after-tax net earnings of NT$423 million for the quarter, steeply down 57% and 37%, respectively, from the first quarter, with single-quarter EPS (earning per share) hitting the lowest level of NT$0.38 since the beginning of the financial tsunami. 

In total, the company finished the first half of the year with combined revenue of NT$39.103 billion, combined net operating income of NT$983 million and after-tax net earnings of profits of NT$1.092 billion, declining 16.5%, 63.1% and 53.4%, respectively, from the same period of last year. 

Although LCD TV market inertia and pessimistic global economic outlooks have lingered into the third quarter of the year, the company is still confident of regaining growth momentum from backlight modules for use in notebook and tablet PCs, projecting its overall shipment to increase by a maximum of 10% in the period. 

Also, robust shipment of projectors will sustain the company’s business growth in the coming months of the year. Impervious to supply shortage of DMD (digital micro-mirror device) chips following Japan’s devastating earthquake, the company still shipped 313,000 projectors in the second quarter for a 5% growth from the first quarter, raking in NT$4.692 billion, up 23% quarterly. 

The company said that DMD chip shortages in fact has started to ease amid a sluggish market in the U.S. and Europe in August, and therefore won’t negatively impact its projector shipment in the third quarter. Hopefully, the company will maintain monthly shipment at 100,000 to 110,000 units in the quarter, and achieve 1.3 million units for the whole year.