By Ben Blanchard and Sarah Wu
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s Delta Electronics Inc, a supplier of power components to companies such as Apple Inc and Tesla Inc, is expanding manufacturing “everywhere” on a boom in electric vehicles and servers, it said on Friday.
CEO Cheng Ping, in buoyant comments on a first-quarter earnings call, said the firm was building new factories in Taiwan, China, India and Thailand and looking for new manufacturing sites in the United States and eastern Europe.
“We are building capacity everywhere,” he said, after reporting first-quarter sales rose 14% on-year to T$82.5 billion ($2.81 billion). Gross profit in the quarter was T$22.5 billion, up 4%.
Chairman Yancey Hai added the company, which produces some 60% of its products in China, was seeing strong demand for electric vehicles, or EVs, servers and data centres.
More traditional automakers such as Ford Motor Co, not just Tesla, are seeing their EV sales soar, a trend that will continue to Delta’s benefit, he added.
“Our auto department often works overtime, very late hours. I often ask them to go home earlier. I tell them, you’ll be at this for many more years – it’s not just one quarter or one year.”
However, Delta has been impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns in China, and hopes its ability to ship goods from there resumes soon, Hai said.
“If you lack any materials, the car factory can’t operate,” Hai said of EV supply chain challenges. Delta, whose shareholders include Singapore‘s government, makes devices that control the flow of electricity in a range of products such as smartphones, personal computers, servers and electric vehicle charging stations. Taiwan’s tech firms, a key part of the global supply chain, have boomed on the back of demand for tablets, laptops and other equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced millions to work and study from home.
While major markets are resuming post-COVID life, electric vehicles, high-end computing and 5G demand is continuing to support a range of Taiwanese tech firms, like chipmaker TSMC.
Delta’s shares have fallen around 9% so far this year, giving it a market value of $21.76 billion. They closed up 1.4% on Friday, versus a 1.1% gain in the broader market.
($1 = 29.4030 Taiwan dollars)
(Reporting by Sarah Wu and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kim Coghill)
