Creative shares surge 36% on positive CES launch of new SXFI headphone technology

Singapore

Some 3.8 million shares changed hands, about 10 times the average 300,000 shares in trading volume from Monday to Thursday.

This came after Creative launched its new Super X-Fi (SXFI) headphone technology worldwide on Thursday at the annual CES show in Las Vegas.

The SXFI gadgets create headphone sound with "three-dimensional" detail, using a computational audio technology invented by Creative. They received positive feedback from those who tried the technology at the show.

On the same day, Creative also swept up four awards for its SXFI products from consumer technology writers and reviewers who roamed the exhibition floor in search of the cutting edge.

In an interview with The Business Times, Creative chief Sim Wong Hoo shared that he is already thinking ahead about how to bring the technology to the wider market.

Last year, Creative shares had awakened from a slumber in the S$1.12 to S$1.25 range, jumping 600 per cent over seven sessions to hit a decade high of S$8.75 in March, which even Mr Sim acknowledged was "too high" on Thursday.

"Not so fast, guys. Of course it's good that people are excited. If you believe, you wait, but we can't deliver results overnight," he said.

The counter then went into rocky trading for much of the remaining year, inviting queries from the Singapore Exchange on several occasions for unusual share price movements.

From Dec 19 to Dec 27, the counter saw a deep plunge, going from S$5.45 to S$3.28. The post-Christmas broader market sell-off did not help either.

In its results for the first quarter ended Sep 30, Creative posted a net loss of US$6.1 million, reversing from a profit of US$22.8 million in the year-ago period, but it said that with higher revenue in the holiday season and a small revenue contribution from its SXFI audio products, it should bring about an improvement in operating results for the next quarter.