Memorychip testing and packaging services provider Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技) expects revenue this year to grow at an annual single-digit percentage rate, driven primarily by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices and data centers this quarter.
The company is investing heavily in advanced packaging technologies including panel-level packaging and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) technologies to further capture AI opportunities, and is in talks with customers to provide CoWoS solutions, CEO Boris Hsieh (謝永達) told an investors’ conference yesterday.
The company aims to provide a complete CoWoS solution rather than only providing the easier part of the back-end solution, he said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
AI applications accounted for 8 percent of the company’s revenue last quarter, rising from 6 percent in the second quarter and 4 percent in the first quarter.
This year’s growth momentum would also be fueled by the spillover effect of a high bandwidth memory (HBM) expansion, Hsieh said.
That means Powertech has a chance to receive more orders to provide standard DRAM chip testing and packaging services from the world’s three major memorychip makers, which have allocated significant capacity to produce HBM DRAM chips to support surging AI demand.
Revenue last year plummeted about 16 percent to NT$70.44 billion (US$2.19 billion) amid the global semiconductor industry’s worst slump in more than 20 years, it said.
“The total consolidated revenue can still grow by a single-digit percentage year-on-year this year in the absence of revenue from China’s Xian plant,” Hsieh said.
Powertech previously produced standard DRAM chips for Micron Technology Inc at the Xian plant based on a supply agreement, which expired in June.
As a result, Powertech’s revenue dropped 6.6 percent quarterly, and down 0.8 percent annually, to NT$18.3 billion last quarter.
Net profit fell 7 percent to NT$2.15 billion last quarter, from NT$2.31 billion the previous quarter, as the company posted nonoperating losses of NT$63 million in the quarter, mainly due to significant foreign exchange losses, it said.
On an annual basis, net profit rose 8 percent from NT$1.99 billion.
Gross margin improved to 21.4 percent last quarter from 19 percent in the previous quarter and 17.8 percent in the same period last year, the company said.
In the first three quarters, total net profit soared 27.5 percent annually to NT$6.57 billion, from NT$5.16 billion, while earnings per share rose to NT$7.05 from NT$5.41 and revenue increased 9.4 percent to NT$56.22 billion from NT$51.41 billion, it said.
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