Acer, Asustek see net profits soar in 2021

Taipei, March 17 (CNA) Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer Inc., two leading Taiwanese personal computing brands, saw their year-over-year net profits surge in 2021 by 81 percent and 68 percent, respectively.

Acer said Wednesday that its net income surpassed the NT$10 billion (US$351 million) mark last year to hit NT$10.897 billion, a 11-year high.

The 81 percent year-over-year increase also saw earnings per share rise to NT$3.63, compared with NT$2.01 in 2020.

In 2021, Acer's consolidated sales totaled NT$319.01 billion, up 15.1 percent from a year earlier with its gross margin -- the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold -- at 11.7 percent.

Its net margin -- the difference between gross profit and total expenses, including interest payments and taxes -- stood at 4.4 percent, the highest in the company's history.

In the fourth quarter of last year alone, Acer posted NT$2.24 billion in net profit, down 26 percent from the third quarter but up 12 percent from a year earlier, while its consolidated sales reached NT$86.53 billion, up 6.6 percent from a quarter earlier and also up 4.7 percent from a year earlier.

Acer said as a strong showing in 2021, the company had proposed issuing NT$2.28 in dividends per share. Based on the closing price of Acer shares at NT$29.70 on Wednesday, the dividend payout ratio would hit 7.68 percent.

The cash dividend proposal is pending shareholder approval at a meeting scheduled for June 10.

For its part, Asustek posted NT$44.55 billion in net profit in 2021, up 68 percent from a year earlier with EPS at NT$60.

Its brand sales, meanwhile, rose 31 percent from a year earlier to NT$500.4 billion.

In the fourth quarter alone, Asustek registered NT$12.06 billion in net profit, up 6 percent from a quarter earlier and also up 22 percent from a year earlier on brand sales at a quarterly high of NT$141.83 billion, up 9 percent from a quarter earlier and also up 22 percent from a year earlier.

Asustek has proposed issuing NT$42 in cash dividends per share for its 2021 earnings, a payout ratio of 70 percent. The dividend payout plan requires approval from its shareholders later in the year.

At an investor conference held Wednesday, S.Y. Hsu (許先越), Asustek's co-CEO, said his company was upbeat about the commercial PC market in 2022, although he cautioned that sales in the global PC market were likely to fall to single digits.

Hsu said that in the past two years, Asustek had been pouring more funds into the commercial PC market. In the consumer PC market, Hsu added, his company had been doing well in the gaming PC and Creator PC sectors.

Asustek Chief Financial Officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) said the company had paid attention to the possible impact on global demand resulting from a war waged by Russia against Ukraine and has taken the particular factor into consideration in its operations.

On Monday, Asustek announced that its shipments to Russia were at "an effective standstill" in the wake of the international sanctions against Moscow.

"ASUS routinely abides by all international regulations, and this situation -- combined with complex challenges across supply chain, logistics and banking, plus other factors -- has created an effective standstill of shipments to the Russian market," the PC vendor said in a statement on Twitter.

The statement is the company's first public response since Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov made a public appeal on March 10 for the Taiwanese company to stop doing business with Russia until "the Russian aggression in Ukraine is fully stopped and fair order is restored."

(By Jeffrey Wu and Frances Huang)

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