GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said most of its production lines would be fully utilized this quarter and next quarter, despite a downtrend in the semiconductor industry.
Construction of its new US fab is mostly on track, except for slight delays in delivering some components due to the long lead time, GlobalWafers said.
The company said that its Texas fab would start volume production in the first quarter of 2025 at the earliest.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
The new fab is supported by the Creating Helpful Initiatives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act in the US.
At the end of last quarter, GlobalWafers had accumulated NT$38.21 billion (US$1.19 billion) in repayments from customers who signed long-term supply agreements, with most of the contracts requesting capacity from the new US fab, the company said.
“We do see lower demand for smaller-diameter wafers, such as 6-inch wafers, for applications targeting consumer [electronics] and memory [chips],” GlobalWafers chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) told a teleconference. “Some customers asked to reschedule shipments. Basically, all of our 200mm and 300mm wafer production lines are fully loaded in the fourth quarter and even in the first quarter of 2023.”
“We see no order cancelations, nor any changes in terms of long-term agreements with customers,” Hsu said.
The global semiconductor industry is under mounting inventory pressure due to softening demand for consumer electronics, but demand for chips used in automotive and industrial devices continues to be strong, she said.
GlobalWafers remains unable to meet demand for float-zone silicon wafers and silicon-on-insulator wafers, Hsu said.
Such wafers are mostly used to manufacture chips for 5G phones, high-performance computing and medical devices.
The company expects average selling prices to go up next year, thanks to a favorable product mix, GlobalWafers spokesman William Chen (陳偉文) said.
Gross margin would be stable next year, the company said.
However, it is facing challenges next year from volatile foreign exchange rates, surging energy costs in Europe and Japan, as well as rising depreciation costs, Hsu said.
Those unfavorable factors could put a damper on revenue growth next year, she said.
Addressing concern among investors about escalating geopolitical tensions, GlobalWafers said that its Chinese factories mostly produce 6-inch wafers and only about 5 percent of its total revenue comes from China.
GlobalWafers’ net profit surged 88.2 percent to NT$5.11 billion last quarter from NT$2.72 billion in the second quarter and rose 64.6 percent from NT$3.11 billion a year earlier.
Earnings per share rose to NT$11.74, from NT$6.24 in the previous quarter and NT$7.13 a year earlier.
Gross margin climbed to an all-time high of 43.7 percent from 43.6 percent a quarter earlier and 39.1 percent a year earlier.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS