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.
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