TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker and the most important assembler of Apple (NASDAQ:)’s iPhone, mentioned on Friday it anticipated an increase in second quarter income after the earlier quarter underperformed market expectations.

The primary quarter is historically quieter than the earlier one, the season when Taiwan’s tech corporations race to produce smartphones, tablets and different electronics to main distributors akin to Apple for Western markets’ year-end vacation interval.

Foxconn mentioned in a press release that this yr’s second quarter “stays a standard off-peak season, and main merchandise are getting into a interval of transition between previous and new merchandise”.

But it surely mentioned the outlook for the second quarter can be for progress each quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. It didn’t elaborate and the corporate doesn’t give numerical steerage.

The corporate, formally referred to as Hon Hai Precision Business Co Ltd, mentioned income final month reached T$447.54 billion ($13.96 billion), which it mentioned was the second highest determine on document for a similar interval and represented an on-year rise of 11.8%.

For the primary quarter, income slid 9.6% year-on-year to T$1.322 trillion, underperforming a T$1.401 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate, which supplies higher weight to forecasts from analysts who’re extra persistently correct.

The corporate mentioned final month it anticipated first quarter income to barely decline, and famous in its assertion the primary quarter income was according to its outlook.

First quarter income in its good client electronics merchandise, together with smartphones, declined year-on-year, which it blamed on a excessive base from final yr when it was speeding to fulfil orders after a key manufacturing facility in China’s Zhengzhou re-opened following COVID pandemic-related disruptions.

Nevertheless, for cloud and networking merchandise it mentioned there was important year-on-year progress within the first three months of the yr, “with robust prospects’ pull-in for the cloud phase”.

Final month, Foxconn adopted a much more bullish outlook for this yr, saying on its fourth quarter earnings name that it anticipated a big rise in income pushed by booming demand for synthetic intelligence servers.

Foxconn’s shares have surged 52% to date this yr, in contrast with a 13% leap for the broader market.

The corporate holds its first quarter earnings calls on Could 14.

($1 = 32.0590 Taiwan {dollars})