IC foundry Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) yesterday said its net income edged down 1.49 percent sequentially last quarter due to higher income tax payments.
Net profit fell to NT$1.32 billion (US$44 million), or earnings per share of NT$0.8, for the April-to-June quarter, from NT$1.34 billion or NT$0.83 per share in the first quarter.
However, compared with a year ago, last quarter’s figure was up from NT$1.14 billion or NT$0.71 per share in the second quarter last year.
The result was also lower than market consensus forecast of NT$1.37 billion or NT$0.85 per share. Citigroup analyst Roland Hsu’s (徐振志) estimate was at the upper range at NT$1.43 billion or NT$0.89 per share.
Prior to the release yesterday, Hsu had forecast that the company would post record-high quarterly earnings for the second consecutive quarter.
The reason for the discrepancy was a 60 percent jump in income tax payments, which surged to NT$340 million from NT$213 million in the previous quarter, according to the company’s financial statement released after its quarterly conference with investors.
However, Vanguard’s consolidated revenue in the second quarter, which increased 6 percent quarter-on-quarter and 9 percent year-on-year to NT$5.82 billion, met the company’s guidance made in April and was better than Hsu’s forecast of NT$5.72 billion.
The Hsinchu-based company attributed the revenue increase to higher wafer shipments and rising average selling prices.
Capacity utilization rate was about 104 percent in the second quarter, slightly lower than the first quarter’s 106 percent, while gross margin was about 38 percent, compared with 37 percent in the prior quarter, Vanguard said.
For this quarter, Vanguard president Tseng Dong-liang (曾棟樑) said the company expects wafer shipments to rise by between 6 and 8 percent from last quarter, after the company started to integrate an eight-inch wafer fab from newly acquired DRAM chipmaker Sumpro Electronics Corp (勝普) from July 1.
However, given a lower product margin and a lower utilization rate at the Sumpro’s fab, Vanguard’s overall utilization rate for this quarter is expected to slide to about 100 percent, while its gross margin could fall to between 33 percent and 35 percent, Tseng said in the statement.
Average selling prices are forecast to stay flat from a quarter ago, he added.
While Vanguard still aims to convert half of Sumpro’s memorychip capacity into higher-margin power management chips during the second half, Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) analyst George Chang (張家麒) yesterday said that the chip industry is likely to undergo a small inventory correction during this period, which might offset the incremental benefit from the company’s newly added capacity.
Yuanta expects Vanguard’s earnings per share this quarter to be flat from NT$0.8 last quarter, Chang said in a client note.
Vanguard shares yesterday rallied 3.26 percent to NT$44.40, outperforming the GRETAI Securities Market index, which rose 0.84 percent.
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