DFI will maintain gross margins of 17-18% in the second quarter on rising orders for industrial-use applied computing platform (ACP) motherboards, according to company chairman YC Lu.

The high-profit segment helped the company reach pretax profits of NT$58.27 million in the first quarter, up significantly from the NT$15.99 million it recorded for the same period last year.

The ACP-motherboard division accounted for more than 50% of DFI revenues for the first time in April, Lu stated. DFI plans to add up to 50 R&D staff to the division by the end of this year, noted Lu, saying that the company has received orders of system assembly for gaming and gambling machines that are based on Intel Xscale processors.

DFI currently supplies its ACP motherboards to IBM, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu and JVC, with major applications including banking, ATM (automatic teller machine), POS (point-of-sale), gaming and gambling. DFI also intends to land new customers for ACP-motherboard orders in the second half of this year, according to Lu.

Although ACP motherboard revenues accounted for 38% of its total revenues in 2004, Lu expects the contribution to top 45% this year. In addition, DFI anticipates its high-end LANParty and Infinity series of motherboards will contribute 30% to its revenues by year-end, rising from 27% at present.

Market sources project DFI will top earnings per share (EPS) of NT$2 in 2005, doubling from NT$1 last year.

More information available at http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20050613A6042.html.