Yageo Corp (國巨) yesterday reported its best quarterly net profit in nearly three years, but said that its growth momentum could be disrupted this quarter by a global chip shortage.
On top of that, market demand for consumer electronics and mobile devices has shown some softness in the Greater China region, Yageo told an online investors’ conference.
Net profit last quarter surged 87.6 percent to NT$6.81 billion (US$244.7 million) from NT$3.63 billion a year earlier, and grew 7.6 percent from NT$6.33 billion the previous quarter, company data showed.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
Gross margin improved to 41.1 percent last quarter, compared with 37.4 percent a year earlier and 41 percent in the second quarter.
“Moving into the fourth quarter, the COVID-19 pandemic has not yet eased and a supply shortage of IC components has caused shipment delays for some clients,” Yageo chief executive officer David Wang (王淡如) said.
“Clients tend to be relatively conservative in the stocking of electronic components due to China’s power restrictions,” he added.
The power curbs are likely to affect the output of Yageo’s clients and exert a certain impact on supply chains, but not on Yageo, Wang said.
“The impact on Yageo is insignificant,” he said.
The company is lowering utilization rates at factories that produce lower-margin standard products to about 70 percent this quarter to keep inventory in check, Wang said.
However, factories that make premium products continue to run at full capacity, he said.
High-end products, including passive components used in vehicles, account for about 75 percent of Yageo’s overall revenue.
Automotive passive components alone accounted for 19 percent.
“The company still sees a strong book-to-bill ratio of more than 1, thanks to robust demand from the automotive, industrial, 5G infrastructure and notebook sectors,” Wang said.
Revenue this quarter would “decline moderately” from NT$29.39 billion last quarter, but the company is striving to keep gross margin at above 39.1 percent through production optimization and raising operational efficiency, he added.
Net profit in the first three quarters soared 95.7 percent to NT$18.15 billion, compared with NT$9.27 billion in the corresponding period last year.
Earnings per share rose to NT$36.79 from NT$20.03. Revenue jumped 77.9 percent to NT$80.85 billion from NT$45.45 billion in the preceding year, after merging Kemet Corp in the second quarter.
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