ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) yesterday said it expects its chip assembly and testing (ATM) service revenue this year to grow two times faster the global semiconductor industry’s as 5G-related applications drive chip demand.
The Kaohsiung-based company said that its ATM revenue last year expanded 10 percent to NT$270.1 billion (US$9.52 billion) from a year earlier.
Global semiconductor industry sales, excluding the memory chip segment, are predicted to grow by 5 to 10 percent this year, ASE said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
The company said it expects ATM capacity constraints to last throughout this year, instead of just the first half, as it had forecast three months ago.
It plans to add 1,800 wire-bonding machines this year to meet customers’ rising demand, ASE said.
“In 2021, [equipment] loading is very strong. We are quite confident about that. Our optimism has extended into 2022,” chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) told investors at a virtual conference.
To secure as much capacity as they can, about 90 percent of ASE’s wire-bonding packaging service clients have signed two-year supply contracts, Wu said.
Capital expenditure this year would be the same as last year at US$1.7 billion, he said.
ASE’s net profit surged 57 percent to NT$10.04 billion last quarter from NT$6.38 billion a year earlier and grew 50 percent from NT$6.71 billion in the previous quarter.
Net profit last year rose 64 percent to a record-high NT$27.59 billion, from NT$16.85 billion in 2019. That translated into earnings per share of NT$6.47, up from NT$3.96 in 2019.
The company said it expects its ATM business to remain strong this quarter, which is usually a slow season.
However, its electronics manufacturing service business is forecast to weaken, with revenue sliding to about the NT$53.13 billion it registered in the third quarter of last year, it said.
Gross margin should be similar to the 22.6 percent it posted in the previous quarter, it said.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US