Yageo Corp (國巨), the world’s No. 3 multilayer ceramic capacitor supplier, yesterday gave an upbeat business outlook for next quarter, as robust demand for high-end products has helped to lift its book-to-bill ratio and keep inventory healthy.
Premium passive components used in vehicles, and industrial and medical devices account for 75 percent of the company’s overall revenue, compared with 30 percent in 2017, after it spent two-and-half years optimizing its product and customer lineups, Yageo said.
Yageo’s goal is to boost that share to 80 percent by 2023, with revenue contributions from the automotive segment rising to 22 percent from 18 percent at present, Yageo chairman Pierre Chen (陳泰銘) told an online media briefing after the company’s annual general meeting in New Taipei City’s Xindian District (新店).
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
“Yageo’s new structure is very different from that of the past,” Chen said. “We are no longer heavily dependent on the greater Chinese market to grow our business.”
Yageo is benefiting from growing demand for high-end passive components from Europe, Japan and the US, Chen said.
Last month’s sales were evidence of that, he said.
Sales last month increased 3.37 percent to NT$9.51 billion (US$339.73 million) from a month earlier, bucking a downtrend that was commonly seen in the past as Yageo’s Chinese customers entered inventory counting season in June.
The company said that its diverse product and customer portfolios have helped shield it from the ups and downs of the consumer electronics market.
Due to greater exposure to China’s consumer electronics market, Yageo’s global rivals saw their customers collecting excessive inventory due to poor sales in the market.
“We see that our customers have healthy inventory. Orders and customer demand are keeping good momentum,” Chen said. “We are still keeping our [book-to-bill] ratio at a high level. Growth momentum remains strong in the third quarter.”
Most production lines are running at more than 90 percent utilization, he said.
To cope with robust customer demand, Yageo expects capital spending to make up 33 percent of the company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization this year, and 28 percent next year, before slipping below 20 percent in 2023.
Commenting on Yageo’s partnership with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) to make chips for electric vehicles, Chen said that it would help double Yageo’s revenue from Hon Hai.
Yageo shareholders yesterday approved a planned distribution of NT$10 per common share, including NT$2 per share from its capital surplus.
The firm reported earnings per share of NT$27.58 for last year.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS