Flat panel firm delivers fat panel profits

GIANT TAIWANESE firm AU Optronics declared all was rosy for its third quarter financial earnings.

It made a gross margin of 23 per cent for the quarter, with revenues up 30.1 per cent to NT$137.96 billion (~$4.235 billion) , delivering a net profit of $22.57 billion (~$690,523,000).

Part of the reason is that it reduced its pile of LCD panels from 43 days to 38 days.

It claims it's got 20.2 per cent of global LCD panel share, and has one 7.5 generation fab, two 6th generation fabs, one 4th gen fab and four 3.5 gen TFT-LCD fabs.

It makes panels for apps between 1.5-inches and 65-inches. µ