SEMICONDUCTORS
SPIL revenue declines 7.2%
Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密), the world’s No. 2 chip packager, yesterday said revenue fell by 7.2 percent to NT$6.88 billion (US$220.9 million) last month from NT$7.41 billion in May, according to a company statement. That brought the company’s second-quarter revenue to NT$21.24 billion, a 2.1 percent increase from the first quarter’s NT$20.81 billion. On an annual basis, revenue shrank 3.1 percent from NT$21.93 billion last year. The figure matched SPIL’s forecast, which ranged from NT$21.2 billion to NT$22.4 billion. Chairman Bough Lin (林文伯) last month said that demand would gradually pick up next month on the back of new product launches from smartphone brands other than Apple Inc. Business visibility for the second half of this year is still unclear, as unresolved debt problems in Europe and potential rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve are overshadowing global economic growth, Lin said.
CHIPMAKERS
Lextar yearly revenue falls
LED chipmaker Lextar Electronics Corp (隆達電子) yesterday reported consolidated revenue of NT$3.59 billion for last quarter, a 5 percent decline from NT$3.78 billion in the same period last year. On a quarterly basis, the total grew by 1.98 percent from NT$3.52 billion generated in the first quarter of this year, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Lextar’s consolidated revenue totaled NT$7.1 billion in the first half of this year, up 1.24 percent from NT$7.01 billion in the same period last year. Shares dropped 1.22 percent to NT$20.2 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which lost 1.09 percent.
PANELMAKERS
TPK revenue continues slide
Touchpanel maker TPK Holding Co (宸鴻) yesterday reported a 21.2 percent sequential decline in revenue for last month to NT$7.01 billion from NT$8.91 billion in May. In the period ending on Tuesday last week, revenue dropped 18 percent to NT$23.74 billion from NT$28.95 billion in the prior quarter. The decline is largely in line with the company’s forecast. TPK predicted that revenue could drop by between 15 percent and 20 percent from last quarter’s NT$28.9 billion, as demand dwindles following major smartphone and tablet clients’ product transitions. Sales are expected to recover in the second half of this year amid the launch of clients’ new products, TPK said. On an annual basis, last quarter’s revenue plunged by 22.7 percent from NT$30.7 billion in the same period last year.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by