ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂科技), a display driver IC and memorychip tester and packager, yesterday forecast significant revenue growth for this year as it plans to raise its prices again to reflect the higher cost of copper and other raw materials following strong semiconductor demand.
The Hsinchu-based firm has raised its prices an average of 5 to 8 percent since the fourth quarter of last year, it said, adding that the increases were also due to a lack of testing and packaging capacity.
Strong demand for ChipMOS’ services is continuing from last quarter, leading the company to expect revenue this year to increase 15 to 20 percent from NT$23.01 billion (US$823.2 million) last year.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
In March, ChipMOS had forecast double-digit percentage growth for this year.
As the tightness in the semiconductor supply chain is to continue for an unspecified period, ChipMOS said that demand for its products continues to be robust this quarter.
ChipMOS attributed the gap between supply and demand to the global digital transformation.
“The firm is installing high-end manufacturing equipment and all of the new facilities are booked, so we expect revenue to increase every quarter for the rest of the year,” ChipMOS chairman Cheng Chih-chieh (鄭世杰) told a teleconference yesterday.
“The firm has increased its inventory to three months of stock to handle rising demand,” Cheng said.
ChipMOS also expects its bottom line to further improve this year, thanks to the easing of its financial responsibility in a joint venture with Tsinghua Unigroup (清華紫光).
Last quarter, Unimos Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co Ltd (紫光宏茂) returned to the black, so it might distribute a higher cash dividend next year, compared with NT$2.2 per share proposed for this year, Cheng said.
Cheng said that the firm has a rosy outlook for this quarter, with revenue expected to grow sequentially at a high single-digit percentage from a record NT$6.47 billion last quarter.
The company’s factory utilization rate this quarter should reach a high level due to increased demand for testing and packaging services for DRAM, flash memory and display driver chips, Cheng said.
The firm’s display driver IC packaging service, which accounted for about 47 percent of its first-quarter revenue, would still be used at full capacity this quarter, while the utilization rate of its memorychip packaging service would increase from 95 percent last quarter, he said.
“Higher average sales prices will also boost profits,” Cheng said.
In the January-to-March quarter, the company posted its best net profit in seven quarters at NT$959.1 million, surging 34.6 percent annually from NT$712.7 million and up 40.4 percent quarterly from NT$686.4 million.
Earnings per share increased to NT$1.32, compared with NT$0.98 a year ago and NT$0.94 in the previous quarter.
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