MediaTek Inc (聯發科), which supplies handset chips to Chinese companies, including Lenovo Group (聯想) and Xiaomi Corp (小米), yesterday again posted record-breaking monthly revenue, of NT$17.43 billion (US$576 million), boosting the current quarter’s revenue past the company’s forecast.
Last month’s revenue rose 10.79 percent from February’s NT$15.73 billion and grew 84.84 percent from a year earlier after acquiring local flat-panel TV chip supplier MStar Semiconductor Corp (晨星半導體) in February.
In the first three months of the year, MediaTek’s revenue expanded 15.6 percent to NT$46.01 billion from NT$39.8 billion the previous quarter, exceeding the company’s forecast ranging from NT$41.4 billion to NT$44.6 billion.
Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams yesterday said the strong results were caused by a 7 percent quarter-on-quarter increase in smartphone chips to 70 million units and helped by a steady average selling price of US$10 for the company’s products. In January, MediaTek projected chip shipments of 65 million units for the first quarter.
This quarter, MediaTek is expected to post 3 percent sequential growth in revenue, supported by ramping up production of octa-core chips and revenue contribution from MStar, Abrams said in a research note.
Abrams raised his earnings forecast for MediaTek this year to NT$9.6 billion in net profit, or NT$6.16 per share, from his previous estimate of NT$9.1 billion, or NT$5.83 a share.
He also increased the stock’s target price to NT$540 from NT$500 for the next 12 months.
Separately, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s biggest chip packager, yesterday posted 22.3 percent sequential growth in revenue for last month to NT$19.87 billion from NT$16.24 billion in February.
For the quarter ended last month, ASE’s consolidated revenue contracted 14.8 percent to NT$54.7 billion from NT$64.16 billion the previous quarter, but was still higher than the NT$53.02 billion projected by Abrams.
Revenue from the core business — chip packaging and testing services — fell 9.4 percent to NT$34.35 billion in the first quarter, which was also above ASE’s guidance of between NT$32.95 billion and NT$33.83 billion.
Meanwhile, Siliconware Precision Industries Co’s (矽品精密) sales grew 15.9 percent to NT$6.46 billion last month from the prior month, bringing its quarterly revenue to NT$18.06 billion, up 4.2 percent from the fourth quarter’s NT$18.84 billion and beating the firm’s forecast of between NT$17.3 billion and NT$18.1 billion.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day