Except for Radiant Opto-Electronics, which saw a modest sequential growth in September revenues, Taiwan-based backlight unit (BLU) makers including Forhouse and Coretronic posted monthly drop in revenues.
Coretronic's consolidated revenues in September slipped 6% on month to NT$8.241 billion (US$267.69 million), but increased 4% from a year ago. Third-quarter consolidated revenues reached NT$25.891 billion, up 1% sequentially and 23% on year. Consolidated revenues for the three quarter thus far in 2010 rose 38% on year to NT$72.758 billion
Coretronic's projector shipments in September reached 142,000 units and NT$1.928 billion by value, rising by 49% and 18%, respectively. Growth was largely driven by demand for SVGA and video models. Third-quarter projector shipments totaled 356,000 units, down 7% from the second quarter but up 40% from a year ago. Third-quarter revenues from projectors slipped 11% sequentially but up 24% on year to NT$5.024 billion. Since tight component supply in the first half had spurred customers to move up their orders, Coretronic indicated that seasonal pattern is unclear for the rest of the year but October projector shipments will likely fall.
For BLUs, Coretronic shipped 5.83 million units and NT$5.251 billion by value, down 21% and 13% on month respectively on inventory adjustments in the monitor and notebook sectors. September shipments for TV-use BLUs increased 27% on month to 1.37 million units, of which 30% were LED models. Shipments for monitor BLUs were 2.26 million units, of which 41% were LED models. Notebook BLU shipments came to 2.17 million units and LED models accounted for a 93% share.
Third-quarter BLU shipments amounted to 19.8 million units, contracting 7% sequentially but up 2% on year. Revenues increased 5% sequentially and 24% on year to NT$17.375 billion. The company also expects flat growth for October BLU shipments.
Radiant registered NT$4.248 billion in September consolidated revenues, up a modest 0.67% from August and 27.93% from a year earlier. Consolidated revenues from January through September were NT$34.639 billion, of which the third quarter saw a 3% sequential growth to contribute NT$12.607 billion.
Radiant shipped 4.66 million notebook BLU in September, which represented 50% of the company's monthly revenues. Shipments of large-size LED BLUs for notebooks totaled 2.42 million units, netbook BLUs were 2.23 million units, and CCFL notebook BLU were about 10,000 units. For LCD monitor BLUs, Radiant shipped 2.21 million units in September, down 10% from August. TV BLU shipments grew 12.69% on month to 710,000 units.
Though Radiant's third quarter BLU shipments came to 23.46 million units versus 25.52 million units in the second quarter, revenues increased during the same period on more shipments of higher price products for TV applications.
Forhouse's merger with Nano Electro-Optronics Technology (Nano-Op) did not yield positive results as expected. September consolidated revenues fell 5.29% on month but were up 9.18% on year to NT$2.194 billion. Forhouse pointed out that the decline was largely due to inventory adjustment in the panel supply chain. The company is projecting stronger sales results for October.
Kenmos Technology's consolidated revenues in September reached NT$967 million, down 26.1% on month. The negative result was driven by shipment drop in the LCM and IT sectors. The company expects flat growth for October.