Compal Communications No.1 in shipping cellphone handsets

Compal Communications Inc., a handset affiliate of Compal Electronics, saw shipments of cellphone handsets exceed five million units in December 2005, edging out rival Arima Communication Corp. as Taiwan's No.1 producer of cellphone handsets and setting a record for sales in Taiwan's handset sector.

Compal Communication posted NT$5.294 billion (US$162.89 million at US$1:NT$32.5) in sales in December last year, up 60% from the preceding month's NT$3.299 billion (US$101.5 million). The company said it has set a goal of shipping five million cellphone handsets this year.

In the past, BenQ Corp. was Taiwan's largest producer of handsets in terms of shipments, with contract orders coming from Motorola. As BenQ has switched to developing its own-brand products, Motorola has shifted the orders for entry-level handsets to Compal Communications.

With the contract orders from Motorola, Compal shipped 37.9 million handsets last year, far more than the highest record of 16 million units created by BenQ a few years ago.

Compal said it registered NT$38.956 billion (US$1.19 billion) in sales last year, up 167.65% from the previous year's NT$14.555 billion (US$447.8 million). The company posted NT$11.5 billion (US$353.84 million) in sales in the fourth quarter of last year, up 18% from the previous quarter. The average selling price for the company's handsets reached NT$1,030 (US$31.69) last year.

It is expected that Compal and Arima will see more shipments in the first quarter of this year than the fourth quarter of last year as they have landed big-ticket orders from Motorola and Sony Ericsson, respectively.

Arima noted it has begun shipping Z300-model cellphone handsets to Sony Ericsson and is also preparing to ship brand-new J220 and J230models. The company said it shipped 12 million handsets last year and would challenge 15 million to 20 million units this year.

An institutional investor estimated that Compal has a chance to challenge shipments of 15 million handsets in the first quarter of this year, representing a sequential growth of 30%. Arima may come close to shipping five million units in the first quarter of this year, up 25% from four million units registered in the fourth quarter of last year.

source & copyright: CENS