Chip tester and packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品) yesterday posted a 25.5 percent decline in net income in the second quarter from a year ago to NT$1.13 billion (US$39.1 million), 5.14 percent higher than the previous quarter.
With 3.12 billion issued shares, diluted earnings per share were NT$0.36 in the second quarter, compared with NT$0.34 in the previous quarter and NT$0.49 a year earlier, the company said in its latest earnings report.
SPIL, the world’s second-largest chip-packaging and testing company, said its gross margin of 15.6 percent in the second quarter was higher than the 15.2 percent recorded in the first quarter thanks to the company’s increased use of copper for wirebonding.
However, because of a rising NT dollar and still climbing gold prices, the figure was still lower than the 16.9 percent reported in the same period last year, the company said in the report.
Despite market concerns about inventory adjustment in the semiconductor sector in the second quarter, SPIL is expecting the adjustment to continue into the third quarter, but at a milder pace, chairman Bough Lin (林文伯) told investors.
Lin said the semiconductor sector is likely to hit the bottom next month and start rebounding in September, attributing his optimism to recent strong earnings reports from major US tech companies such as Intel Corp.
In a conference call with analysts last night, Lin said he expected the firm’s revenue to grow by between 2 percent and 6 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter, while gross margin would continue rising quarter-on-quarter slightly because of increased momentum in copper wirebonding migration from gold wirebonding.
Copper wirebonding sales grew 30.7 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$2.81 billion in the April-to-June period, company data showed.
“In the second quarter, copper wirebonding sales reached 27.4 percent of total wirebonding revenue. It was lower than our original target of 30 percent because some US customers are reluctant to migrate to copper wirebonding,” Lin said.
Lin said he expected the rate to increase continuously on back of the still-rising gold prices.
However, the rate would not hit the 50 percent level until the second quarter of next year, rather than the company’s original target of sometime before the end of this year, he added.
"SPIL’s third-quarter revenue guidance of up 2-to-6 percent is largely in line with expectations, in view of declining PC/NB demand and slightly rising demands from communication and consumer segments," Citigroup Global Markets analyst Roland Shu (徐振志) commented in a note late last night.
"However, the [third-quarter] gross margin guidance of larger than 15.6 pecent [in the second quarter], though no specific range, is a bit conservative compared to [market] consensus of 18 percent and our forecast of 19 percent," he added.
The Taichung-based SPIL said yesterday the company's utilization rate would be 95 percent for wirebonding packaging in the third quarter, up from 90 percent in the second quarter.
The utilization rate of flip-chip ball-grid-array packaging is likely to stay flat at 95 percent in the third quarter, so is that of IC logic testing equipment at 70 percent, according to the company.
Capital expenditure, meanwhile, will be maintained at NT$10 billion for the year, Lin said.
Citigroup maintained a “hold” rating on SPIL but cut its target price on the stock to NT$33 from NT$36.
SPIL shares rose 0.5 percent to NT$30.25 yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, ahead of the release of the company’s quarterly results.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”