Pegatron Corp. posted net income of NT$4.55 billion ($141 million) in the third quarter, up 1,483.6% from the previous three months, as the iPhone assembler benefited from disposing shares in China’s Luxshare Precision Industry and reduced foreign exchange losses.
The Taipei-based company’s earnings per share reached NT$1.69 for the July-to-September period, marking a five-quarter high. Net income rose 5.8% from a year earlier, according to the company’s investor conference on Tuesday.
Non-operating income jumped to NT$4.46 billion in the quarter, surging 1,614.2% sequentially, driven largely by the Luxshare stake sale. Gross margin improved to 4.2%, up 1.1 percentage points from the second quarter, as the company optimized its product mix.
Communication products, primarily iPhone assembly, still accounted for 60% of Pegatron’s revenue through the third quarter, despite the company’s strategy to gradually reduce its dependence on Apple’s smartphone business. Information products represented 14% of sales, consumer electronics 8%, and other businesses including automotive electronics 18%.
For the nine months through September, net income fell 30.5% to NT$9.14 billion, while revenue declined across most product categories.
Co-Chief Executive Officer Johnson Teng said notebook computer sales will decline sequentially in the current quarter due to seasonal trends, though servers and motherboards will grow. The company expects communication products to perform better than the third quarter on seasonal smartphone demand.
