The book-to-bill ratio for North America-based makers of semiconductor equipment stayed at parity level last month, but an industry watcher said falling orders might be a sign of a trend change in coming months.
The book-to-bill ratio measures new orders against products sold each month, with a ratio of greater than one indicating strong demand, while a ratio of less than one showing weakness.
“Billings for new semiconductor manufacturing equipment continue to increase and the ratio has been at or above parity for the past seven months,” SEMI president and chief executive officer Denny McGuirk said in a press release on Tuesday.
The San Jose, California-based SEMI is a global trade association that represents the semiconductor and flat-panel display equipment and materials industries, such as Applied Materials Inc.
“However, order data moderated slightly in the July report and we will look to the month ahead to determine if this reflects a trend change,” McGuirk said.
In the semiconductor industry association’s latest report released on Tuesday, last month’s book-to-bill ratio moderated to 1.0 from 1.1 in June. Though the figure remained at the healthy level of 1.0 last month, it represented the lowest level in the past seven months.
The book-to-bill ratio is the three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. From January through June, the ratios had been above 1.0, meaning more orders coming in than products being sold each month, according to SEMI.
Yet orders last month dropped 4.6 percent from June to US$1.273 billion and was the lowest since April, when they recorded US$1.17 billion, indicating that semiconductor equipment makers were hesitant in maintaining their capital expenditures at high levels.
On Friday last week, the world’s largest supplier of chipmaking equipment, Applied Materials, gave a disappointing sales forecast amid muted semiconductor demand and a record slump in the PC market.
Moreover, wafer foundries and integrated device manufacturing companies, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), Samsung Electronics Co and other companies that make mobile phone parts, may also be waiting for smartphone demand to accelerate before they commit more of their capital spendings, analysts said.
Meanwhile, SEMI’s data showed that billings totaled US$1.269 billion last month, up 4.6 percent month-on-month and the highest so far this year. However, last month’s number remained 12 percent lower year-on-year.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six