Altek said to have secured Pentax orders

Altek Corporation, one of Taiwan's leading contract manufacturers of digital still cameras (DSCs), is said to have acquired orders from Pentax of Japan for shipments beginning from the first quarter of 2007.

But Altek hasn't yet proved the rumor, saying it has secrecy agreement with clients. If the rumor is proved to be true, the Japanese orders will account for 30% of Altek's total sales next year as this is the first time for the company to secure Japanese orders.

At present, Altek is over-concentrated on such major clients as Eastman Kodak and Hewlett Packard of the U.S. Altek president Hsia Ju-wen said his company will add a Japanese client next year to help disperse operating risks. Hsia estimated the Japanese market will account for 30% of Altek's total sales next year.

An institutional investor said over the past two years Altek has been strenuous to struggle for Japanese orders. In addition, Altek is said to have helped Sony of Japan to set up production facility in mainland China in the second quarter of this year.

Altek estimated it would challenge NT$18 billion (US$545.45 million) in consolidated sales this year and the amount will exceed NT$20 billion (US$606.06 million). Sales to Japanese market will amount to NT$6 billion (US$181.81 million) next year.

Specializing in the production of medium and low-tier DSCs, Altek is seen to have upgraded manufacturing technology as it has acquired Japanese orders.

The company posted NT$4.04 (US$0.122) in EPS in the first half of this year and is expected to grab NT$10 (US$0.3) for the whole of this year.

The company said it posted NT$2.263 billion (US$68.57 million) in consolidated sales in august, up 46.46% year-on-year and hitting a historic high monthly record. Thanks to the continued injection of orders, the company believed it would hit another record high in monthly sales in September.

In addition to the strong performance of Altek, another DSC contract manufacturer-Ability enterprise Co. also saw historic-high record in shipments and sales in September. The company said it shipped 700,000 units of DSCs in September, hitting an all-time high monthly record.

To meet customers' demand, Ability has recently launched an expansion project in a plant in mainland China. At present, the company's mainland plant is capable of rolling out 800,000 units of DSCs per month. Thanks to the expansion project, the company will see mainland production capacity increase to one million units yearly in the first half of next year.

source & copyright: CENS