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.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
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