Himax expects sales to drop 15-22% in 1Q15
Julian Ho, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Friday 13 February 2015]
LCD driver IC specialist Himax Technologies expects to report a 15-22% sequential decrease in consolidated revenues for the first quarter of 2015, due to a seasonal slowdown in end-market demand.
Despite being pessimistic about its business outlook for the first quarter, Himax is confident that the company will enjoy continued revenue and profit growth in 2015.
Himax reported net profits of US$66.6 million on consolidated revenues of NT$840 million for 2014. Both sales and profit figures represent on-year growth of 9.1% and 8.3%, respectively.
For the fourth quarter of 2014, Himax' consolidated sales increased 2.2% on quarter and 16.4% on year to US$227.2 million. The figure was also the highest quarterly level since the fourth quarter of 2008.
In the fourth quarter, sales of Himax' large-size panel driver ICs grew 39.9% on year to US$65.5 million. The segment accounted for 28.8% of its total revenues in the quarter compared to 24% during the same period in 2013.
Meanwhile, sales of Himax' small- and medium-size panel driver ICs came to US$114.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2014, up 1.7% on year and hitting a quarterly record high. The segment remained the largest contributor to Himax' revenues, but the proportion of it to the company's total revenues fell to 50.5% in the fourth quarter of 2014 from 57.9% a year earlier.
Sales of Himax' non-driver IC businesses soared 32.1% from a year ago to US$46.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2014. Among its non-driver IC products, touch controllers showed the strongest growth nearly tripling from the same period of 2013, followed by CMOS image sensors with sales nearly doubling on year, the company said.
"Following a few years of revenue decline, large-size panel driver IC sales should be a major growth engine for the company in 2015," Himax noted. The company indicated its large-size panel driver IC business enjoyed three consecutive quarters of growth after bottoming out in the first quarter of 2014, thanks to an expanded customer base in Taiwan, China and Korea, and surging demand for Ultra HD TVs.
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