Win Semiconductors Corp (Win Semi, 穩懋半導體) holds a strong outlook for the current quarter, thanks to resilient demand from smartphone and infrastructure segments.
The world’s largest compound semiconductor foundry, which is 4.72 percent owned by Avago Technologies Ltd, last week said it expects revenue to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage to a record high, compared with the NT$6.4 billion (US$209.2 million at the current exchange rate) that it made last quarter.
That would boost revenue this year by 20 percent from last year’s NT$17.31 billion, the company forecast on Friday.
“Almost all smartphone customers are showing increased demand for our products in the fourth quarter, compared with the third quarter,” Win Semi president Steven Chen (陳舜平) told investors in a teleconference.
This is a rare case for the company, which tends to see revenue peak in the third quarter of a year, Chen said.
The unusual boon comes amid strong demand for power amplifier (PA), Wi-Fi and vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) chips, he said.
VCSEL chips are used in 3D face recognition applications, acting as a lighting source that provides even facial illumination with infrared light.
“That means our customers are outselling smartphones more than people had thought,” Chen said.
Gross margin for this quarter is to remain at a similar level to last quarter’s 42.1 percent, which was a historical high, he said.
Win Semi is bullish about the business outlook for next year, citing the growing demand from 5G smartphones, applications and network deployment.
“We are optimistic about next year’s outlook,” Chen said.
“There will be more 5G smartphones and applications after the [commercial] launch this year [of 5G],” he said.
“We strongly believe 5G will be a growth engine for the company in the next few years,” he added.
Win Semi, which ships PA chips for 5G-enabled phones and other products, said 5G-related chips have contributed more than 10 percent of its total revenue.
To satisfy customers’ demand for 5G chips, the company plans to expand its monthly capacity from 36,000 wafers to 41,000 wafers next year, it said.
Robust demand for smartphone-related chips — including VCSEL and Wi-Fi chips — helped boost its net profit last quarter to a historical high of NT$1.64 billion, or earnings of NT$3.9 per share, it said.
That compares with net profit of NT$384 million a year earlier and NT$1.19 billion in the previous quarter.
Gross margin improved significantly to 42.1 percent, from 34 percent in the second quarter, due to the high utilization rate of 95 percent, up from 80 percent in the previous quarter, the company said.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
RSS