CDW guides for consolidated operating profit in FY2021 on strong H2 turnaround

PRECISION components specialist CDW BXE : BXE 0%said it expects to report a consolidated operating profit in its financial results for the second half and full year ended Dec 31, 2021, which are due to be released on or before Mar 1, 2022.

In a profit guidance issued on Tuesday (Jan 25), the mainboard-listed company said a recovery in its LCD backlight business segment has improved overall operating results for H2 compared with the previous year.

This comes despite the impacts of Covid-19 and the global shortage of semiconductor chips in the automobile industry - and has led to a turnaround for the group's original equipment manufacture business as "orders from major customers recovered significantly", it added.

CDW estimates that its annual shipment volumes for automotive digital instrument panels have grown by 64 per cent from 2020.

LCD backlight units for automotive display units alone saw 63.9 per cent shipment volume growth and 56.3 per cent higher sales value for 2021, said the group in a press statement.

It highlighted that the backlight units business posted annual shipment volume growth of nearly 3.8 per cent and 12.2 per cent higher in segment revenue, compared with the previous year.

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CDW's LCD backlight units are used in the instrument panels for luxury cars of major car brands in the US and Germany. These will also be shipped to "one of the largest Japanese car brands" starting from October 2022, said the group.

For the 6 months ended June 2021, CDW posted a wider loss of US$1.1 million from its loss of US$351,000 in H1 FY2020, even as revenue surged 28.3 per cent to US$63.5 million on the growth of its LCD backlight units segment.

Its bottomline for the half year was mainly impacted by higher distribution and administrative expenses due to the increased costs of materials and transportation, as well as salary-related expenses, legal fees and research and development expenses.

CDW had previously reported earnings of US$1.5 million for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2020, reversing from its US$1.9 million loss in the previous year. Earnings per share for FY2020 was 0.66 US cents, as opposed to a loss per share of 0.83 US cents in FY2019.

Shares of the group were trading S$0.02 or 7.8 per cent higher at S$0.275 on Tuesday, after the announcement.

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