AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) yesterday posted smaller quarterly losses as higher TV panel prices helped cushion the effect of a slow season and supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While it was the fifth consecutive quarter that the company ended up in the red, net losses of NT$4.99 billion (US$167.44 million) last quarter were significantly smaller than losses of NT$8.83 billion in the previous quarter and NT$3.69 billion a year earlier.
The pandemic significantly impacted whole supply chains, as anti-virus measures and transportation restrictions caused a labor shortage and component supply crunch in the first quarter, AUO said, adding that inventories jumped 18.8 percent sequentially to NT$27.88 billion last quarter.
Average selling prices dropped 0.67 percent to US$296 per square meter last quarter from US$298 a quarter earlier, it said.
However, the company expects the pandemic to be a boon this quarter, as remote learning, work-from-home and play-at-home trends are spurring demand for flat panels used in laptops, PC monitors and medical devices.
As a result, large-sized panel shipments are forecast to grow 20 percent sequentially this quarter, while average selling prices are expected to drop about 5 percent, it said.
“We saw some positive impact from the pandemic. Because of stay-at-home, work-from-home and e-schooling trends, we saw significant increases in demand for our information technology [IT] products,” AUO chairman Paul Peng (彭双浪) told investors.
To cope with rising demand for advanced IT panels, AUO is to roll out new 4K mini-LED panels used in 27-inch and 32-inch laptops next quarter, targeting content creators and PC game players.
Overall, “second-quarter revenue will be better than the first quarter,” Peng said.
AUO posted revenue of NT$53.69 billion last quarter, down 13.42 percent quarterly and 19.51 percent annually.
Due to the shutdown of TV assembly lines in Mexico and other parts of the world due to coronavirus containment measures, AUO said it holds a “conservative” view about TV panel shipments this quarter.
Supply chain disruptions and the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games are affecting demand for TV panels, it said.
Shipments of small-sized panels are expected to drop a low-single-digit percentage this quarter amid dwindling demand for displays used in smartphones and automobiles, AUO said.
Business visibility for the second half of this year is unclear as the pandemic is taking a toll on the global economy and job market, and dampening consumer confidence, Peng said.
On the plus side, the travel bans would limit panel supply from new fabs and should help improve the industry’s supply-and-demand dynamics, he said.
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass
RSS