[Featured Stock] Purentier's Quarterly Operating Profit Soars 100x Amid Flood of Orders... Tesla's All-Out Bet on Full Self-Driving

Furontier is showing strong performance. The news of achieving the highest quarterly sales in its history since its founding seems to be influencing the stock price.

As of 9:41 AM on the 8th, Furontier is trading at 26,400 KRW, up 7.1% compared to the previous trading day.

Furontier announced that it achieved sales of 18.7 billion KRW and operating profit of 5.2 billion KRW in the first quarter of this year. This represents an increase of 186% and 10,094% respectively compared to the same period last year.

A company official explained, "As the autonomous vehicle and automotive sensing camera markets grow together, orders from customers have increased," adding, "Operating profit significantly increased as one-time expenses such as financial advisory fees, legal advisory fees, and special bonuses for employees commemorating the IPO in the first and second quarters of last year were resolved."

By business division, the Equipment Division recorded sales of 10.15 billion KRW in the first quarter, a 163% increase compared to the same period last year. It achieved 69.6% of the total sales of the previous year in the first quarter alone. The Parts Division's first-quarter sales were 8.56 billion KRW, a 219% increase compared to the same period last year.

With the growth of the autonomous vehicle market, the paradigm of the automotive camera market is shifting from 'viewing cameras that visually and simply deliver video information around the vehicle to the driver' to 'sensing cameras that analyze information around the vehicle and can directly intervene in driving.'

High-resolution image sensors, lenses capable of seeing over 100 meters, and ultra-wide-angle functions exceeding 190 degrees are being introduced, and demand for process equipment capable of responding to these is also explosively increasing.

The official stated, "This year, we plan to develop advanced technologies by collaborating with technology-leading companies on a product lineup with market competitiveness and actively carry out overseas marketing." He added, "We will strive to secure meaningful performance by responding more actively to customer demands in the global sensing camera market."

Furontier is a process equipment specialist company that develops and supplies key equipment used in the assembly and inspection processes of sensing cameras for autonomous vehicles. Representative equipment includes ▲Active Align, which maximizes camera image quality through micrometer-level optimized assembly between image sensors and lenses ▲Intrinsic Calibration, a technology that corrects the optical characteristic values of cameras with a deviation of 0.12% ▲Active Align equipment for LiDAR that recognizes 3D information using laser pulses. Additionally, it supplies integrated production equipment lines for driver monitoring IR cameras and built-in cameras, whose adoption rates have recently surged.

Hwang Se-hwan, a researcher at FS Research, analyzed, "Tesla's Elon Musk mentioned on the 19th of last month that full autonomous driving technology might be released within this year," adding, "Tesla has been developing autonomous driving functions for years and has experienced failures, but Musk's statement indicates that autonomous driving technology has become more advanced."

He continued, "Overall, the speed of technology development by autonomous vehicle companies is accelerating, so equipment demand will increase even earlier," and said, "We expect an increase in orders mainly from domestic companies due to market demand growth."