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.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”