Wintek Corp., a Taiwanese supplier of touch panels, cooperates with Quanta Computer to fill orders for Win8 products from brand vendors including HP, Dell, and Lenovo for the first time; along with growing design projects with Nokia, Google, and Asus, Wintek‘s monthly shipments of OGS (one glass solution) panels exceeded five million pieces as a new historical high, boosting gross profit margin in the fourth quarter.
Wintek’s chairman X.S. Huang emphasized that the Win 8 operating system will boost demand for touch panels for smartphones, tablet PCs, and NBs significantly.
Wintek’s major customers as Nokia, Google, Asus, and Quanta have recently all expanded cooperation with the firm. With Quanta expanding both NB and tablet PC businesses, the firm works with Wintek in various design projects with brand vendors to raise Wintek’s OGS monthly shipments remarkably.
Huang analyzed that currently thin touch panels include in-cell touch panel, GF (glass film), and OGS. However with high production cost of in-cell products due to generally poor yield rate, along with high cost of GF due to expensive film supplies from Japan, Wintek’s OGS cost is relatively low to attract many brand vendors.
Institutional investors pointed out that shipments of medium-sized touch panels (applied in New iPad) in the fourth quarter has recovered, along with increasing shipments of medium & large-sized OGS products, Wintek should see capacity utilization and gross profit margin in the fourth quarter improve slightly from the third.
Due to declining orders for small-sized touch panel for smartphones, Wintek’s revenues in September and October dropped steadily, with revenues down 12.8% month on month to NT$8.475 billion (US$282.5 million) in October, up 51.3% from a year earlier, with consolidated revenues in the first 10 months of NT$87.8 billion (US$2.93 billion), up 20.6% YoY.