Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) yesterday reported mixed financial results for last quarter and maintained a conservative outlook for this quarter.
The Hsinchu-based company forecast that revenue this quarter would be between NT$6.8 billion and NT$7.2 billion (US$223.2 million and US$236.4 million), compared with NT$7.13 billion in the July-to-September period.
Vanguard projected a gross margin of between 35 percent and 37 percent, and an operating margin of between 23 percent and 25 percent this quarter, a presentation posted on the company’s Web site following its earnings conference showed.
That compared with a gross margin of 37 percent and an operating margin of 25.1 percent last quarter.
“Due to the high level of inventory in the supply chain, we remain cautious about customers’ wafer demand,” Vanguard chief financial officer Amanda Huang (黃惠蘭) said in a statement.
Vanguard specializes in LCD driver ICs and logic ICs, as well as power management ICs and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor image sensors.
In the third quarter, net profit grew 1.1 percent quarterly, but declined 10.4 percent annually, to NT$1.496 billion, or earnings per share of NT$0.9.
Third-quarter revenue, gross margin and operating margin were in line with the company’s previous guidance thanks to a better product mix.
In the first three quarters of this year, net profit increased 2.95 percent year-on-year to NT$4.36 billion, or earnings per share of NT$2.66, while revenue decreased 1.28 percent to NT$20.95 billion. Gross margin and operating margin reached 36.69 percent and 24.45 percent respectively.
Separately, contract chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) on Wednesday released its third-quarter results, which generally met expectations, and gave a positive outlook for this quarter.
The world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker reported that net profit rose 68.4 percent quarterly to NT$2.93 billion, due mainly to strong chip demand from the wireless communications segment, with earnings per share of NT$0.25, the best in five quarters.
Revenue last quarter increased 4.8 percent to NT$37.74 billion, while gross margin improved by 1.4 percentage points to 17.1 percent and operating margin rose 1.8 percentage points to 6.7 percent quarter-on-quarter, as its capacity utilization rate rose from 88 percent to 91 percent.
UMC maintained a positive outlook for this quarter, which was mainly driven by new product launches and inventory replenishment demand from customers in the communications and computer segments, as well as the consolidation of United Semiconductor Japan Co from Oct. 1.
The company expects wafer shipments to rise 10 percent quarterly this quarter, with average selling prices of its products to remain flat quarterly.
While the 28-nanometer capacity utilization rate would likely remain soft in the next three quarters, UMC expects it to improve later due to mass production of 5G-related projects.
The consolidation of the Japanese 12-inch wafer foundry is expected to result in a 10 percent growth in capacity and create synergy in the next two to three quarters, UMC said.
However, the company revised down its capital spending budget to US$700 million for this year, from US$1 billion it planned earlier.
In the first nine months of the year, net profit decreased 33.1 percent annually to NT$5.87 billion, or earnings per share of NT$0.5.
Revenue dropped 8.1 percent year-on-year to NT$106.35 billion, while gross margin and operating margin fell to 13.5 percent and 2.5 percent, from 15.8 percent and 5.5 percent a year earlier respectively.
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