Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋半導體) yesterday reported the highest revenue in the past 12 months for last month due to bullish demand from branded handset vendors ahead of new product launches this quarter and next quarter.
The Linkou (林口), Taoyuan County-based company said in a statement that revenue was NT$1.04 billion (US$34.5 million) last month on a consolidated basis, up 7.41 percent from the previous month, and also up 23.45 percent from a year earlier.
Win Semiconductors, the world’s largest pure-play gallium arsenide (GaAs) foundry, provides foundry services for GaAs components used in handsets, including smartphones. Its major clients — Singapore’s Avago Technologies Ltd, Japan’s Murata Manufacturing Co, China’s RDA Microelectronics Inc (銳迪科) and US-based Skyworks Solutions Inc — produce GaAs-based electronic devices used by Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co and Nokia Oyj in their products.
Last month, power amplifier (PA) chips accounted for more than 50 percent of its total sales, with others including Wi-Fi-linked components and infrastructure-related applications, such as those for base stations, optical fiber networks, satellite communications and national defense businesses.
Win Semiconductors’ latest sales data came after its local peers — Visual Photonics Epitaxy Co (全新光電) and Advanced Wireless Semiconductor Co (宏捷科技) — last week also reported strong sales for last month.
Last month, Visual Photonics, one of the top three GaAs epitaxial wafer manufacturers in the world, posted NT$218 million in consolidated sales, the highest level since July last year. The figure rose 5.3 percent from July and was 30.45 percent higher than in August last year.
In the same month, Advanced Wireless Semiconductor registered NT$275 million in consolidated sales, up 4.4 percent month-on-month and 221 percent year-on-year.
Win Semiconductors, Visual Photonics and Advanced Wireless Semiconductor have been dubbed among major “Apple concept stocks” in the local market and are expected to report strong sales this quarter, considering the launch of the iPhone 6 as well as demand for PA chips for non-Apple handsets and other Wi-Fi-linked components, analysts say.
In the first eight months of the year, Win Semiconductors reported cumulative sales of NT$6.13 billion, down 22.97 percent from a year earlier, with the declining pace slower than the 28.44 percent registered in the first seven months.
From January through last month, Visual Photonics’ cumulative sales were NT$1.33 billion, representing an annual fall of 16.1 percent, but also improving from the 21.65 percent decline seen in the first seven months, while Advanced Wireless Semiconductor’s sales during the same period increased 72.53 percent year-on-year to NT$1.33 billion.
However, Taiwan’s GaAs industry still faces potential challenges in the long term, such as price competition from complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor PA products, analysts say.
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