Taiwanese manufacturer of computer electronics and smartphones Asustek Computer reported a significant improvement in financial performance in the III quarter of 2017 compared with the previous quarter, reports Taipei Times.
The company's net profit in July-September jumped by almost 200% and reached 5.83 billion Taiwan dollars (193.23 million US dollars), while in the previous three-month period, ASUS revenue amounted to about 2 billion Taiwan dollars. The revenue of ASUS in quarterly terms increased by 20%, to 104.2 billion Taiwan dollars (3.45 billion US dollars).
It also became known about the growth of gross and operating margin by 2.19 and 0.93 percentage points, to 14.4% and 3.9% respectively.
"The dynamics of Asustek in major business areas, such as the production of mobile phones, personal computers and motherboards, has improved significantly compared to the previous quarter," said the company's CFO Nick Wu, speaking at a conference with investors.
Among the factors that contributed to the restoration of finance, the company noted the release of new smartphones of the ZenFone 4 series, as well as profit in the form of dividends on financial investments.
However, despite the progress, the quarterly figures were lower than the corresponding values ??of the previous year. In particular, Asustek's net profit in the third quarter of 2017 did not reach last year's 2%. Total revenue for 9 months of 2017 was about 11.5 billion Taiwan dollars (381 million US dollars), which is almost 20% less than the company earned a year ago, when its profits were measured at 14.26 billion Taiwan dollars.
A similar situation with revenue. The sales volume in July-September decreased by 3% relative to the same period of 2016. According to ASUS, in aggregate with the October figures, the company's total revenue for 10 months of 2017 amounted to 354.67 billion Taiwan dollars (11.7 billion US dollars), which is 6.53% less than last year's result.
However, ASUS expects that seasonal demand growth at the end of the year will allow it to maintain an upward trend.
According to the company's forecast, in the final quarter the revenue in the PC segment, which accounts for over 60% of Asustek's total sales, will increase by 5-10% compared to the previous quarter. The same growth is expected in the mobile segment.
In addition, the head of Asustek, Jerry Shen (Jerry Shen) said that in October-December, smartphone business can return to profitability thanks to smartphones ZenFone 4, which are 30% more expensive than the previous series of ZenFone 3 and provide a large margin.