Arima Communications Lands Sony Ericsson's New Handset Order

Taipei, March 7, 2008 (CENS)--Arima Communications Corp., a leading supplier of handset on an ODM (original design manufacturing) basis in Taiwan, has won a new order from Sony Ericsson for its T303 series entry-level slide phones, according to company sources.

With the new order, Arima Communications has landed four orders for new mobile phone models this year, thus effectively boosting its sales revenue in February from January, compared to other suppliers generally suffering sales declines during the same month.

Arima Communications reported sales revenue of NT$1.195 billion for February, up around 7.5% from a month earlier, on shipment of 750,000 handsets. The firm posted aggregate combined revenue of NT$2.334 billion for the first two months of the year.

Arima Communications has already obtained four orders from Sony Ericsson respectively for T270, T280, R300 and T303 series new mobile phones and is reportedly to enjoy an order for a new handset model from the client by the end of this year. The firm is scheduled to start delivery of T280 and R300 series phones in the second quarter and aims for single-month shipment of one million units in March, in hopes of turning around its business operations as soon as possible.

On the other hand, affected by Motorola's lackluster sales of mobile phones, Compal Communications Inc. reported February revenue of NT$2.696 billion and aggregate revenue of NT$6.819 billion for the first two months of this year, down 30.8% and 24.5%, respectively, from NT$3.897 billion and NT$9.036 billion posted a year earlier.

Ichia Technology Inc., a Taiwanese maker of conductive rubber keypads and plastic injection parts for mobile phones, scored combined revenue of NT$447 million in February, down 22% from January but up 5.4% from a year earlier, with its keyboards contributing NT$227 million and FPCs (flexible printed circuits) NT$220 million. Over the first two months of this year, the company posted aggregate revenue of NT$1.02 billion, up 8.7% from a year earlier.