Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s largest integrated circuit packaging and testing firm, expects slightly higher revenues in the third quarter, despite weaker market momentum.
“It will take two to three months for foundry customers to digest excessive inventory, causing third-quarter demand to be below usual seasonal levels,” chief financial officer Joseph Tung (董宏思) told an investors’ conference yesterday.
Tung’s views were in tune with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, which last week posted its lowest quarterly net profits in five quarters, saying it expected sales and profitability to weaken further this quarter as customers reduce orders to digest inventory.
Despite that, ASE forecast revenues would rise between 3 percent and 6 percent in the third quarter from the second, thanks to gains in market share as it switches to copper wirebonding technology.
The company posted revenues of NT$32.26 billion (US$1.1 billion) in the second quarter, up 4 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Second-quarter earnings fell 8 percent to NT$3.64 billion, or earnings of NT$0.6 per share. Gross margins edged up to 23.4 percent from 23 percent in the first quarter.
The chip tester said revenue contributed by copper wirebonding rose 38 percent in the second quarter from the earlier three months. Those revenues would increase by 20 percent in the third quarter, it said.
ASE forecast that revenue across most sectors would slow in the current quarter, with communications products seeing stable demand, while revenues from PC applications would decline because of sluggish demand for DRAM chips.
ASE maintained its capital expenditure at between US$750 million and US$800 million for the year, but said there was a chance of an “adjustment” depending on demand in the fourth quarter.
The company’s capital expenditure was US$154 million in the first quarter and US$295 million in the second.
ASE shares fell 3.6 percent to NT$29.2 at the close on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, before the results were announced.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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