Taiwan's Creative Sensor wins big-ticket CCM order from domestic cell-phone maker

Taipei, Sept. 6, 2005 (CENS)--Taiwan's Creative Sensor Inc. (CSI), the world's largest maker of contact image sensors (CISs), recently claimed that it won a big-ticket order for cell phone-use compact camera modules (CCMs) from a Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE)-listed company, and has begun shipment at a monthly volume of 100,000 modules.

CSI registered pretax earnings per share (EPS) of NT$3.7 (US$0.11 at US$1: NT$32.7) for the first half and NT$4.6 (US$0.14) for the first seven months, making it the shinning affiliate in local Teco Group, a leading electrical machinery and high-tech conglomerate.

Plus its shipment to customers in mainland China, CSI is expected to ship about 200,000 sets of CCMs this month. The firm is in intensive talks with many big international customers over future supply of CCMs.

CSI claimed that its revenue-growth momentum would come mainly from CCM products as half of some 600 million cell phones sold worldwide would be equipped with cameras. CSI would focus on the development and manufacturing of over two million-pixel CCM models next year, the company said.

CSI attributed its strong portability in the first half to its efficient cost management and increased rewards from reinvested businesses.

Doris Hsu, CSI president, said that her company has supplied CISs to some international brands and is expected to win more contract-supply businesses in the future. In addition, the president stressed, CSI has successfully ventured into related fields such as CCM, professional optical production processes, and optical-component packaging and test. The company also owns strong ability in opto-electrical machinery integration, development of packaging and test techniques, and development of high-precision optical-module mechanisms.

CSI is expected to further strengthen its profitability through stringent cost and expense controls, Hsu said, though the average selling prices (ASPs) of CISs have been declining rapidly.

According to Hsu, both the production and delivery progresses of CSI's CCM products met the company's original expectations. The company now supplies both 1.3 million and 2.0 million-pixel CCMs to customers in Taiwan and mainland China and is expected to generate revenue of about NT$200 million (US$6.12 million) from such product this year.

CSI reported accumulated revenue of NT$2.77 billion (US$84.59 million) in the first seven months, attaining 45.86% of the company's annual revenue goal. CSI aims to have revenue of NT$6 billion (US$183.49 million) this year, and challenge a revenue goal of NT$10 billion (US$305.81 million) in 2007.