GlobalWafers Corp (環球晶圓), the world’s third-largest silicon wafer supplier, yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 2.6 percent from a quarter earlier and growth momentum would extend into this quarter and next year.
Net profit improved to NT$2.95 billion (US$92.28 million) in the July-to-September period, compared with NT$2.88 billion in the second quarter.
On an annual basis, net profit plummeted 46.7 percent from NT$5.54 billion.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Earnings per share rose to NT$6.18 last quarter from NT$6.02 in the second quarter, but declined from NT$12.73 in the third quarter last year.
The Hsinchu-based company said the worst has passed, and that revenue would pick up this quarter and next year, despite slower-than-expected inventory adjustments by customers.
Sagging demand for its compound semiconductors was another factor as revenue last quarter contracted 8.7 percent, GlobalWafers said.
“I think that fourth-quarter revenue will be higher than the second quarter and third quarter,” GlobalWafers chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) told investors yesterday.
The company hopes revenue next year would return to last year’s level of NT$70.65 billion, an all-time high, Hsu said.
“As inventory levels normalize at the end of the year, we anticipate a market recovery in 2025 driven by improving demand and capacity expansion by customers,” she said, adding that revenue growth would help alleviate rises in equipment costs and facility depreciation.
With an improving fab utilization rate, gross margin would “bottom out” next year, Hsu said.
Gross margin tumbled to the lowest in seven years at 30 percent last quarter, down from 36.6 percent a year earlier and 32.3 percent in the second quarter.
However, the recovery in customer demand was uneven last quarter, Hsu said.
Demand for advanced technology helped lift the utilization rate at its 12-inch fab to about 90 percent, but equipment loading for mature technology and 8-inch fabs remained low as a result of customers’ high chip inventories and sluggish demand for chips used in industrial devices and vehicles, she said.
GlobalWafers said it would continue supplying 6-inch wafers to customers in the vehicle sector, but it would raise wafer prices to reflect higher manufacturing costs.
In addition to US$400 million in direct funding from the CHIPS Act for its US investments, GlobalWafers said it has obtained a 25 percent tax credit based on the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit from the US government.
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