Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體) yesterday posted 13 percent sequential growth in revenue last quarter, beating analysts’ forecasts on the back of strong orders from Apple Inc.
ASE’s revenue expanded to NT$64.16 billion (US$2.12 billion) during the quarter ending on Dec. 31, compared with NT$56.75 billion in the previous quarter, ASE said.
The figure surpassed the NT$63.5 billion estimated by Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams and the market consensus of NT$56.23 billion.
ASE’s sales for last month also surpassed Abrams’ estimate. The firm posted a lower-than-expected decline of 2.5 percent in monthly revenue of NT$21.43 billion last month, compared with Abrams’ 5.5 percent monthly reduction.
He said the company’s better performance reflected its strength in the advanced system-in-package (SIP) business.
Abrams, who last month said that ASE would provide SIP services for fingerprint sensors used in Apple’s iPhone 5S, forecast the company would post a high single-digit percentage decline in revenue for the current quarter, citing a new round of customer inventory control, fewer working days and the low season for Chinese smartphones.
For the whole of last year, ASE set an all-time revenue record of NT$219.86 billion, up 13.35 percent from NT$193.97 billion in 2012, according to a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Abrams retained his “outperform” rating on ASE, with a target price of NT$31.5, implying a 17.5 percent uptick from ASE’s closing price of NT$26.8 yesterday.
On Monday, rival Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) reported consolidated sales of NT$18.84 billion for last quarter, down 1.3 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Last month alone, the firm’s sales totaled NT$6.09 billion, down 1.77 percent month-on-month, but up 26.54 percent year-on-year. It was the seventh consecutive month that the firm’s sales topped NT$6 billion.
Meanwhile, memory chipmaker Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電) yesterday said that its revenue shrank 4.52 percent last month to NT$2.68 billion, from NT$2.81 billion in November.
That brought Winbond’s revenue last quarter to fall slightly by 1 percent to NT$8.3 billion from NT$8.39 billion in the third quarter last year.
The result met Winbond president Chan Tung-yi’s (詹東義) forecast in October that the fourth quarter last year would be a better period than that of 2012, when revenue contracted by 5 percent sequentially, thanks to increased demand for its DRAM chips.
Macronix International Co Ltd (旺宏電子), which supplies chips to Japanese video game console maker Nintendo Co, yesterday posted its smallest monthly revenue in six months at NT$1.67 billion.
In the final quarter of last year, Macronix’s revenue fell 12.8 percent to NT$5.86 billion, compared with NT$6.72 billion in the previous quarter.
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said
RSS