After Sharp Fall, Techwell Revenue Starts to Increase

Major DVR component manufacturer, Techwell is showing signs of recovery after a steep drop in H1 2010. By Q2 2009, surveillance revenue had dropped 39% year over year (see p.15 of the 10k). Now, Q4 2009, show surveillance revenue up 11.5% over Q4 2008 ($15.4 Million USD in Q4 2009 vs. 13.8 Million USD in Q4 2008).

Techwell's explanation of the sharp decline and rebound:

"As end market demand failed rapidly our customers were left with a buildup of inventory in their channel and with little visibility on when demand for their solutions would return. As a result, our security business dropped significantly in the first quarter of this year ...Towards the end of the second quarter, we began to see our security customers’ forecast for the second half of the year improved significantly. Customers are now reporting that the end market demand is on pace to return to ’08 levels by the fourth quarter."

Techwell emphasized the growing strength of China in its recovery:

"Our China customers are benefiting from the relative strength in the Chinese domestic economy and their access to low cost engineering and manufacturing. As a result, they are capturing the bulk of Chinese domestic security surveillance market as well as taking share in the European and North American markets."

An important question is whether Techwell's rebound presages a general increase for analog CCTV suppliers or does it reflect a shift/growth in the Chinese market? We are not able to answer this question with the information we possess currently.