Yageo Corp (國巨), the world’s biggest supplier of chip resistors, saw its shares fall by 8.61 percent yesterday, despite posting another record-breaking quarterly net profit as it hiked its prices due to supply constraints.
In the quarter that ended on March 31, Yageo made NT$4.26 billion (US$144 million), which was more than the company’s share capital of NT$3.51 billion. That represented a 4.3 times increase from NT$818.4 million in the first quarter of last year.
On a quarterly basis, net profit jumped 40 percent from NT$3.02 billion.
Earnings per share surged to NT$12.15 last quarter, compared with NT$1.62 a year earlier and NT$8.62 the previous quarter.
Gross margin climbed to a record high of 51.4 percent last quarter, mainly driven by rising contributions from high-end products for cars and industrial devices.
A persistent tight supply of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC) and chip resistors also helped, Yageo said in a company statement on Tuesday.
The firm’s figures for last quarter beat some analysts’ expectations.
First Capital Management Inc (第一金投顧) yesterday said that Yageo’s gross margin beat its estimate of 46 percent and its earnings per share were also higher than the NT$10.13 it anticipated.
“The significant increase in last quarter’s net profit is primarily attributable to the newly unveiled pricing scheme for MLCC,” First Capital said in a research note.
MLCC accounted for 60 percent of Yageo’s revenue totaling NT$11.02 billion in the first quarter of this year, delivering a gross margin of about 60 percent, the investment consultancy said.
First Capital raised its revenue forecast for Yageo to NT$51.8 billion from NT$47.9 billion, in anticipation that the supply crunch would worsen after Japan’s Kyocera Corp announced its decision to stop supplying standard-type MLCC, it said.
This would prompt Yageo to start a new round of price hikes later this year, it added.
Yageo shares dropped to NT$584 yesterday in Taipei trading, but they have rallied about 65 percent since Jan. 2, when the stock closed at NT$354.
The firm is expected to boost capacity by between 25 and 30 percent this year to cope with robust demand, Taishin Securities Investment Advisory Co (台新投顧) said.
“The capacity expansion should help increase Yageo’s revenue this year,” Taishin Securities Investment Advisory said in a research note yesterday. “We expect supply of passive components to be tight during the second half of this year based on information from the supply chain.”
The investment advisory expects Yageo to make NT$49.63 billion in revenue this year, representing year-on-year growth of about 54 percent.
Yageo last month said it spent NT$12 billion in the final quarter of last year to expand its capacity to cope with rising demand.
Given its rosy profit outlook, Taishin Securities Investment Advisory and First Capital raised the target price of Yageo to NT$720 and NT$756, respectively, until December.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS