Touch-Panel Makers Report Good Results for 1st Half

Taipei, July 22, 2011 (CENS)--Major Taiwanese touch-panel makers reported encouraging results for June operations.

Wintek Corp. announced consolidated gross sales for June totaling NT$7.65 billion (US$255.1 million), up 5.8% month-on-month (MoM). Some institutional investors forecast that Wintek's monthly revenues in the third quarter might outstrip NT$10 billion (US$333.3 million). In the first half, Wintek reported cumulated revenue of NT$43.1 billion (US$1.4 billion), up 108.4% year-on-year (YoY).

Institutional investors said that Wintek will likely expand touch-panel production capacity to meet strong demand from Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc. In the second half, they said, more and more e-book readers will have touch-control functions.

Hyley Huang, chairman and president of Wintek, said that his company's major customer Apple still has no major competitor. In the second half, he added, the overall business climate in touch-panel industry will improve over the first half, during which the Japanese earthquake affected global supply.

Wintek's other customers reported mediocre sales in the first half in the smartphone and tablet PC businesses. However, Huang added, Asus' "Transformer", a concept in-between a PC and a tablet, has successfully created another business or product type.

According to Huang, the two-substrate type touch-panel technology will still be the market mainstream this year. Wintek took the leading role in development of the Advanced Technology Touch (ATT) uni-substrate technology, which is expected to become the market mainstream in 2012 in conjunction with adoption by most first-class international brands. In 2013, the chairman and president said, touch technology is expected to enter an OLED+ATT technology era.

TPK Holding Co., Ltd., another major supplier of touch panels in Taiwan, also said that June revenue continued to increase. TPK just acquired a 19.9% stake in local Cando Corp. for NT$5.58 billion (US$186 million), which will help it build vertical integration in the touch panel business.