Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s top chip packager, yesterday reported a 2.2 percent year-on-year increase in income last month, as revenues rose to NT$14.18 billion (US$480 million).
The figure, which should help the company hit its first-quarter target, was a 4.6 percent increase month-on-month, a company statement said.
“We believe the company is on track to hit the high end of the company guidance,” Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams said in a research note yesterday.
Abrams expected that ASE would report NT$14.1 billion in revenue for last month.
Last month, ASE told investors at a conference that it expected shipments from its core business to fall between 6 percent and 9 percent this quarter from last quarter and for prices to fall by 1 percent to 2 percent quarterly. However, it maintained that the chip contracting business would hold steady quarter-on-quarter.
Abrams said in the note that he expects ASE to post NT$43.25 billion in revenue in the current quarter, down 7.26 percent from NT$46.39 billion in the fourth quarter last year.
ASE said global economic uncertainties affected its businesses this quarter, but the firm forecast a 15 percent rebound in revenues for next quarter.
Abrams maintained his “out-perform” rating on ASE with a target stock price of NT$34, implying a 22.3 percent upside from the stock’s closing price of NT$27.8 yesterday.
Separately, local memory chipmaker Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) yesterday said its revenues declined 24.5 percent year-on-year to NT$1.82 billion last month, from NT$2.4 billion in January.
This represented a quarterly increase of 8.9 percent from January’s NT$1.67 billion.
Macronix expects revenues to slump 38 percent to NT$5.2 billion in the worst-case scenario because of falling demand from its major customer, Japanese video game console maker Nintendo Co.
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