Lite-On IT expects next year's revenues to exceed NT$ 50 billion

December 1, 2003

GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us that Lite-On IT expects its revenues to exceed NT$ 50 billion (US$ 1,5 billion) next year. In 2004 the Lite-On company expects to ship an average of one million CD-ROM drives, one million CD-RW drives and 400,000-500,000 H/H combo drives. No, these figures are not per year, but per month.

According to DigiTimes the prices of
Lite-On's major product lines will continue to drop next
year, but the company is making efforts to raise production efficiency
to maintain gross margins of 15-20%:

With revenue of NT$ 32.8 billion for January-October this year, Lite-On IT estimates revenues of more than NT$ 40 billion for this year. While CD-ROM, CD-RW and half-height (H/H) combo drives have been its major product lines this year, the company has also offered several new products, including 8x H/H DVD burners, slim DVD burners, slim combo drives and home-use DVD recorders, Liao indicated.

Lite-On IT will need to rely much more on new product lines for revenue growth in 2004, Liao noted. The company will begin ODM production of slim combo drives in February or March and that of slim DVD burners at the end of next year. For the whole of 2004, the company expects to turn out five million to six million slim DVD burners and over four million slim combo drives for ODM clients as well as one million home-use DVD recorders for sale under its own brand. Moreover, the company is likely to obtain ODM orders for home-use DVD recorders in the second half of 2004, Liao said.

The new product lines, with gross margins ranging from 25% to more than 30%, will account for more than 50% of Lite-On IT's revenues.

Source: DigiTimes