Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技), the nation’s biggest memorychip tester and packager, yesterday said net profits rose 17.7 percent sequentially last quarter, driven by robust demand for memory chips used in high-end smartphones and PCs.
The company expects the growth momentum to extend into this quarter due to seasonal high demand for smartphones, game consoles, PCs and TVs.
LIMITED DEMAND
However, demand will be limited by a months-long supply constraint in advanced chips, Powertech said.
“Demand remains good according to customers’ forecasts. Demand is particularly high for game consoles and high-end smartphones,” general manager Hung Chia-yu told an investors’ teleconference yesterday. “We expect to see positive growth in the fourth quarter, following three quarters of growth.”
HIGHER UTILIZATION
Robust demand will also reflect on higher factory utilization this quarter from last quarter’s 85 to 90 percent utilization in chip packaging equipment, Hung said.
Hung said his optimism is based on increasing memory density, or memory storage, for new smartphones, servers and enterprise storage units, which bodes well for Powertech.
Revenues this quarter are to grow by a low single-digit percentage, compared with last quarter’s NT$12.76 billion (US$404 million), decelerating from a sequential growth of 12.7 percent last quarter, he said.
“DRAM and flash memory chip businesses are our major growth drivers,” Hung said.
DRAM business, which is the second-largest revenue source for Powertech, accounting for 35 percent of revenues last quarter, grew the fastest with 17 percent quarter-on-quarter, a company financial statement showed.
Revenue from flash memory chips, used in smartphones, last quarter grew 12.2 percent from the previous quarter. Flash memory chips are the company’s biggest revenue contributor with 38 percent.
In the quarter ending Sept. 30, net profit grew 17.7 percent to NT$1.33 billion, compared with NT$1.13 billion in the second quarter. Earnings per share rose from NT$1.45 to NT$1.7.
Gross margin last quarter rose to a five-year high of 22.5 percent, compared with 21.5 percent in the previous quarter, Powertech said.
Hung said a DRAM factory jointly established by Powertech and US memorychip maker
Micron Technology Inc is making good progress.
The factory’s monthly output will double to 100 million units in the near term, he said.
The factory in Xian, China, began mass production in April providing manufacturing services solely for Micron.
RECORD SPENDING
Powertech yesterday said it plans to spend a record high NT$15 billion on facilities and equipment this year to expand capacity in a bid to cope with growing demand for advanced technologies.
The company plans to allocate between NT$8 billion and NT$10 billion capital investment next year, Powertech said.
“The capital spending aims to drive the company’s growth over next two to three years,” Hung said.
Powertech chairman Tsai Du-kung (蔡篤恭) yesterday said he has no plans to retire, allaying investors’ fears of succession problems.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last