The electric device sales of Sekonix, ‘No. 1 maker of smartphone camera lenses,’ to exceed its mobile sales

Sekonix, the number-one maker of smartphone camera lenses in Korea, will expand its portion of the electric device business based on the stable sales at its plant in Poland. It has already been evaluated that the company succeeded in business diversification and improved its business constitution.

A Sekonix official said on Tuesday that “Considering the recent sales trend at the Polish factory, it is expected that 50 billion won in sales will be achieved (easily).” By the third quarter of last year, the cumulative sales of its Polish subsidiaries amounted to 41.1 billion won. Given the recent sales trend, it means that 50 billion won will be surely surpassed. The Polish plant, which started its operation in February 2017, recorded sales of 11.8 billion won in 2017. Through the first half of last year, the Polish company had failed to enter a growth trajectory, which had a negative impact on the company’s overall sales.

The reason why the Polish corporation gets attention is that it is Sekonix’s ‘electric device production base’. In addition, the sales portion of vehicle components can be expanded significantly by considering the increased sales at the Polish plant, which produces module projectors for automotive headlamps, and by adding the sales of SAL, the production company of projection module acquired in 2016. Securities analysts estimate that Sekonix’s electric device business outpaced its mobile sales last year. Kim Woon-Ho, a researcher at IBK Investment & Securities, predicted Sekonix’s auto parts sales forecast at 290.8 billion won this year. This is far more than the mobile parts sales forecast (173.5 billion won). Each accounts for 59.2% and 35.3% of the company’s total sales, respectively.

In the industry, last year, Sekonix was determined to have successfully and significantly improved its constitution. This was because the efforts to increase the sales portion of automobile electric devices such as establishing a Polish subsidiary and acquiring SAL would be realized. Park Hyung-Woo, a researcher at Shinhan Financial Investment Corporation, said, “2018 was the year of improvement in the automotive business portfolio for Sekonix.”

Sekonix’s competitors in mobile camera parts are Digitaloptics, Haesung Optics, and Kolen. Sekonix is estimated to have stable profit structure due to its low proportion of mobile parts sales compared to its competitors. Sekonix is responsible for 90% of the demand for camera lenses for automobiles by Hyundai Mobis, and its camera module business competes with MCNEX.

Founded in 1988, Sekonix is headquartered in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province. It was listed on the KOSDAQ in 2001. Its vehicle parts business produces camera lenses and modules, and projection modules for headlamps. The head-up display (HUD) is expected to be supplied in earnest next year after starting the test production at the end of this year. The sales consensus for Sekonix is up 15.0% year-on-year to 458 billion won and the operating profit consensus is up by 50.0% to 21.6 billion won. The production of high-resolution lenses for smartphones in Vietnam, which suffered from yield problems, has also been stabilized.