Foundry operator Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) said on Monday that second-quarter earnings jumped 32 times from the first quarter’s, but was cautious about the outlook for this quarter as customers adjust inventories.
Net profit reached NT$772.01 million (US$25.74 million) in the second quarter, compared with NT$24.1 million in the previous quarter and NT$362.89 million in the same quarter last year, the company said in a statement.
Earnings per share were NT$0.48 in the second quarter, compared with NT$0.02 in the first quarter and NT$0.22 the year before, company data showed.
Second-quarter revenue was NT$4.55 billion, up 44.5 percent quarter-on-quarter and 13.47 percent year-on-year, on shipments of 357,000 wafers, up 43 percent from the previous quarter and 15 percent from a year earlier.
The company, which also supplies driver ICs used in PC and TV flat panels, said second-quarter gross margin climbed to 27.71 percent from 11.29 percent in the first quarter, but would likely fall to between 24 percent and 26 percent this quarter.
“As gloomy end market demand and customers have turned more cautious on building up inventories, we expect wafer shipments to fall by 4 to 6 percent quarter-on-quarter and fab utilization rates to be around 80 percent,” vice president Tseng Dong-liang (曾棟樑) said in a statement.
However, the blended average selling price will increase by 4 percent to 6 percent from last quarter as the company continues adjusting its product mix and diversifying its process technology, he said.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
Japan approved ¥631.5 billion (US$3.97 billion) in additional subsidies to hasten Rapidus Corp’s entry into the high-stakes artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaking arena, ramping up support for a project widely regarded as a long shot. The capital is intended to bankroll Rapidus’ work for information technology firm Fujitsu Ltd, one of the initial customers that Tokyo hopes would get the signature endeavor off the ground. The new money raises the fees and investments that the government is injecting into the start-up to ¥2.6 trillion by the end of the current fiscal year to March next year, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and
The founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery, a court said yesterday, the latest blow for what was once the country’s leading developer. Evergrande’s rise was propelled by decades of rapid urbanization and rising living standards, but in 2020, its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Founder Xu Jiayin (許家印), 67, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was reportedly held by police in 2023, with Evergrande saying he had been subjected to