Yaego Corp (國巨), the world’s No. 3 multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) supplier, yesterday reported its weakest quarterly net profit in about four years, affected by sagging customer demand due to inventory correction and seasonal weakness.
Net profit last quarter sank 22.83 percent year-on-year to NT$3.65 billion (US$111.21 million) compared with NT$4.73 billion in the same period last year, hitting the lowest level since the third quarter of 2020.
On a sequential basis, net profit plummeted 35.4 percent from NT$5.65 billion in the third quarter last year.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
Earnings per share dropped to NT$7.1 from NT$9.43 a year earlier and NT$11.01 a quarter earlier.
Last year as a whole, Yageo still grew its net profit by about 11 percent to NT$19.36 billion from NT$17.43 billion in 2023. EPS rose to NT$38.18 from NT$37.74 in the prior year.
“This is probably the first time in the MLCC market’s history that we had back-to-back declining years. This is not something we or the industry was expecting,” Yageo executive vice president of global sales and marketing Claudio Lollini told a virtual investors’ conference.
However, the MLCC industry is “showing signs of improvement,” Lollini said. “And we can see that in our own book-to-bill [ratio]... Most of our products have positive book-to-bill [ratios], so we think the MLCC cycle is, hopefully, no longer on decline. I think we are beyond that. We’ll see some growth, but perhaps not very strong growth.”
Visibility on inventory levels from direct automotive and industrial customers is likely to remain low through this summer, he said.
Revenue this quarter would be little changed from the NT$30 billion made in the fourth quarter, the company said.
“Because of the Lunar New Year holiday, the first quarter is usually a low season, but we should be able to maintain the revenue [momentum] this time. Revenue would be flattish,” Yageo chief executive officer David Wang (王淡如) said.
“Our book-to-bill ratio now is higher than one. So, this is very, very positive,” Wang said. “Our distribution and channel inventory level is also very, very healthy, which is also very encouraging.”
Gross margin is expected to improve between 1.5 and 3 percentage points this quarter, from 33.2 percent last quarter, Wang said.
He attributed the improvement to increasing demand for artificial intelligence-related applications, computers, servers and consumer electronics from Asia, China, in particular.
Factory utilization is expected to drop to 70 percent for premium products and to 60 percent for standard products, from 75 percent and 65 percent last quarter, due to the long holiday, Wang said.
Factory utilization would improve quarter by quarter this year, he added.
Yageo said the US’ plan to hike tariffs is really a challenging issue as it is still evolving.
“However, largely speaking, I think we have good exposure in China, Mexico and Europe. And I think there is a decent split of our operations across different areas. So we’ll try to leverage that existence and try to make the best use of it,” Yageo chief financial officer Eddie Chen (陳彥松) said.
Yageo is not in a rush to adjust its global capacity before it gets a clear picture of the market situation, Chen said.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS