Legal business is optimistic about the PCB industry, and the revenue in January has been rather strong, despite being the off-season. Through active replenishing, Zhen Ding, the leading stock, took the top spot on January 12 as prices of PCB plant group stocks have generally soared, including Utechzone, HannStar Board, Uniflex, EMC, Nanya PCB, TPT-PCB, Unimicron, etc., with rather fierce strength, while Chin Poon has headed straight to the upper limit.

 
      As the global leader of automotive PCB, the Taoyuan plant of Chin Poon suffered a disaster caused by fire last year, leading to a headwind in its operations. Looking toward operation this year, the production capacity is expected to be restored in the first quarter. Furthermore, legal business estimates that, along with the rebound of the global auto market in the second quarter, the operation of Chin Poon is also likely to reverse, thus increasing its stock price.

 
       EMC announced its revenue for January as NT$1.843 billion, with a month-on-year increase of 13.4% but a year-on-year decrease of 7%, which meets the market expectation. In looking toward first-quarter prospects, EMC has viewed its performance for the first quarter conservatively due to the long Chinese New Year vacation. Nevertheless, the revenue for the first quarter is generally flat with that of the fourth quarter of 2018, as supported by mobile device and SSD operations.

       The first quarter is the off-season for traditional consumer electronic products, and the market generally expects revenue for the first quarter to be restored against that of the previous quarter. However, since manufacturers rushed to ship out before the Chinese New Year holiday in February and with the year-end inventory count-down in December last year, some PCB factories have had better performance than that of December 2018. Nonetheless, the operation momentum is likely to be further weakened in February, and the revenue is predicted to decline from that of January.

 
       Days before, TPT-PCB announced that it would resort to a share of NT$15.5, a premium of 10.7%, to openly acquire 100% of its subsidiary OTC company -- TMT PCB. TPT-PCB has tentatively scheduled March 29 as the baseline date for share conversion. Once that share conversion is completed, TMT PCB will become a 100% share-holding subsidiary of TPT-PCB, and TMT PCB will no longer be traded over the counter.  

       Uniflex has benefited from orders for new machines from Korea, which will be launched on the market soon. In the fourth quarter of last year, its orders for such new devices as wireless chargers began shipping, driving monthly revenue to rise. That shipment momentum should continue through the first quarter. The market estimates that approximately 53 million pieces will ship for the flagship model of major Korean manufacturers this year. As the first supplier, Uniflex should be able to furnish at least 50% of the orders for related wireless chargers. 

       Utechzone will strive for four new businesses this year. The legal business believes that new product revenue will reach 10~20% this year. Furthermore, the gross profit margin of new products is generally higher than that of the original business, which should further help profits. Utechzone’s revenue us estimated to grow by 10-20% annually, with its profit seeking challenges to increase by 70%.

 (News source: United Evening News)