ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂科技), a display driver IC and memorychip tester and packager, yesterday said that it is raising the prices of most packaging and testing services this quarter as robust demand continues to drive its factory utilization to a high level, compared with an average of 87 percent last quarter.
The Hsinchu-based firm started to raise prices of packaging and testing services last month to reflect higher raw material costs and worsening capacity constraints amid constant delays in the delivery of new manufacturing equipment, it said.
Higher utilization rates and price increases are to give a further lift to the company’s net profit this quarter, ChipMOS chairman Cheng Chih-chieh (鄭世杰) told a videoconference.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
“In the wake of recovering demand, the company expects the growth momentum to extend into this quarter from last quarter,” Cheng said. “All of the company’s product lines will benefit.”
ChipMOS is expanding its capacity to meet customers’ demand, but the supply of raw materials and manufacturing equipment is unstable, he said.
This quarter, its testing and packaging service for memory chips is to outgrow the driver IC business due to a lack of supply of wafers, which would lead to fluctuations in the utilization of driver IC equipment, he added.
“We do not see wafer supply tightness ending in the short term,” Cheng said. “Customer demand remains strong.”
The driver IC segment contributed 45.4 percent of total revenue last quarter, while the chip testing and packaging segment accounted for 43.1 percent.
The company is optimistic about its revenue growth this quarter and next quarter, as customers are proactively building inventory to cope with rebounding demand for consumer electronics and automotive parts, Cheng said.
ChipMOS yesterday reported that revenue hit a record high of NT$2.42 billion (US$86.95 million) last month, up 2.5 percent from NT$2.36 billion in June and an increase of 28.16 percent from NT$1.89 billion in the same period last year.
The company posted a net profit of NT$1.28 billion for the second quarter, a 135 percent annual increase.
Gross margin improved to 28.2 percent from 24.2 percent in the first quarter and 20.7 percent in the same period last year.
ChipMOS booked NT$60 million of income from its Chinese subsidiary Unimos Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co Ltd (紫光宏茂) last quarter, it said.
Unimos Microelectronics, a joint venture with Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd (清華紫光), swung into profit in the second quarter and is expected to continue growing after receiving new orders from Yangtze Memory Technology Corp (長江存儲), ChipMOS said.
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