Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s largest chip packager and tester, yesterday said that quarterly revenue would grow in the second half of this year as expected due to increasing demand for its system-in-packaging (SiP) business.
ASE, which provides SiP services for fingerprint sensors used in Apple Inc’s iPhones, expects revenue from its SiP business to account for 30 percent of its total revenue this year, compared with 18 percent at the end of last year, company chairman Jason Chang (張虔生) said in an annual report to shareholders.
The firm’s approach, which combines its system-level packaging and electronic manufacturing services, is to provide a strong driving force for the company in the future, Chang said.
“We will continue to grow in the second half,” cable TV station USTV quoted ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) as saying following the company’s annual general meeting.
“Early this year, we set a goal to grow [revenue] quarter by quarter this year,” Wu said.
“We will stick to that goal,” he added.
Wu said that the company was cautiously optimistic about the overall semiconductor industry over the next two quarters following inventory adjustments in supply channels this quarter, while seasonal demand would help boost demand.
Daiwa Capital Markets Inc forecast that ASE this year would expand its revenue by more than 19 percent to NT$306.69 billion (US$9.89 billion) from last year’s NT$256.59 billion.
Wu said the global semiconductor industry’s revenue is expected to show expansion at a stable annual rate of between 0 percent and 5 percent over the period from 2011 to this year, which would constitute healthy growth.
Wu said he expects such stable expansion to continue for the next few years.
Stable growth will mean slower capacity investment and milder price declines, which have helped the industry generate stable profits over the past few years, Wu said.
Wu said that the rise in China’s semiconductor industry could bring opportunities for Taiwanese companies, given China’s massive market.
However, Taiwanese firms still have to pay attention to China’s increasing influence in the industry, he said.
Before Chinese companies can grow enough to become strong rivals, the Taiwanese semiconductor industry would continue to grow over the next five to 10 years, while European and US semiconductor manufacturers exit the market, he added.
Shareholders yesterday approved ASE’s proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2 per share based on the company’s net profit of NT$24.22 billion last year, or NT$2.95 per share. The issuance would represent about a 68 percent payout ratio.
Shareholders also gave the green light to a fundraising plan to issue 500 million common shares through overseas rights issuances or private placements.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained