Yageo Corp (國巨), the world’s third-largest supplier of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), yesterday posted its strongest revenue since January last year thanks to a recovery in production capacity in China and robust customer demand.
Revenue last month expanded 37.59 percent to NT$4.49 billion (US$150.04 million) from NT$3.26 billion in May last year. On a monthly basis, revenue rose 1 percent from NT$4.44 billion, despite fewer working days last month due to a longer Workers’ Day break in China.
China is Yageo’s manufacturing hub, accounting for 70 percent of its total production, but the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted production and acerbated an already tight MLCC supply.
In the first five months of the year, revenue increased 5.83 percent to NT$18.95 billion from NT$17.9 billion in the same period last year.
The company “mainly benefited from gradual improvement in production and capacity utilization at Chinese factories, and stable demand from end customers,” Yageo said in a statement.
The company’s “operations, orders and shipments remain healthy and normal,” it said.
Yageo is to gradually raise its capacity utilization to address low inventories and alleviate supply constraints, it said.
Supply of MLCCs has been insufficient since the Lunar New Year holiday and Yageo’s inventory last quarter dropped to about 30 days from 90 days normally.
Adata Technology Co (威剛科技), the world’s second-largest supplier of memory modules, also saw a rebound in demand, which was reflected in strong revenue last month, with a 42.55 percent annual increase to NT$2.57 billion.
Adata attributed the growth to a pickup in demand for PCs and memory chips after some countries reopened their economies from pandemic lockdowns.
“As some European and Southeast Asian nations, as well as the US, gradually reopened economies on better control of COVID-19 infections, customers began to restock inventories in May,” Adata said in a statement.
The product breakdown showed that DRAM modules accounted for 49.51 percent of the company’s revenue last month, up from 48 percent in April, while solid-state drives made up 36.47 percent, the company said.
Adata said that it expects supply constraints to last for another two years as emerging technologies are boosting the use of memory chips to support greater computing power, while new supplies would remain limited.
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