GlobalWafers Inc (環球晶圓), the world’s third-largest silicon wafer supplier, yesterday reported that net profit more than tripled quarter-on-quarter to NT$1.46 billion (US$48.2 million) last quarter, although it was still down 58.8 percent year-on-year.
The company attributed the annual profit decline primarily to increased depreciation costs.
A valuation loss on its 13.67 percent stake in Germany-based Siltronic AG also contributed to the profit decline, it said.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Earnings per share rose to NT$3.05, compared with NT$0.99 in the previous quarter and NT$8.10 a year earlier, it said.
Excluding depreciation and the valuation loss on Siltronic, GlobalWafers would have reported earnings per share of NT$6.94 last quarter, chairperson Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said.
Gross margin would also have improved to 32.1 percent, instead of the reported 26.4 percent, she added.
“Since the start of the year, revenue has steadily recovered... This consistent growth reflects a gradual rebound from the early-year low and ongoing upward momentum,” Hsu said.
“We currently expect [revenue] in the second quarter of 2025 to exceed that of the first quarter, if the NT dollar is relatively stable,” she said.
“With our global scale, local presence and the potential for an industry uptrend, we anticipate 2025 revenue to surpass the 2024 level,” Hsu said.
GlobalWafers expects the impact of a strong NT dollar to be “minimal” and “manageable,” given its diversification in functional currencies and manufacturing sites, she said.
Each 1 percent change in the NT dollar’s exchange rate affects less than 0.5 percent of the company’s operating income, she added.
The company’s manufacturing capacity and revenue in Taiwan account for less than 30 percent of its global total, she said.
As a result, the company is well-positioned to respond promptly to customer needs and has successfully secured urgent and reallocated orders, she said.
“Recently, we have received multiple urgent orders for wafers of various sizes, contributing to higher overall utilization rates,” Hsu said.
Although silicon wafers have not yet been included in the latest round of US tariffs, some customers have adopted a wait-and-see approach, Hsu said.
Certain customers have begun reassessing their supply chain strategies, including increasing regional sourcing, pulling in orders ahead of schedule and building buffer inventories, she said.
The potential US tariffs would raise material procurement costs for GlobalWafers, she added.
While two years ago the company estimated that the cost of goods sold from its US factories would be “very close” to that of its Asian plants, that calculation now requires reassessment, she said.
GlobalWafers said that two of its new wafer manufacturing facilities in the US are in the qualification stage, with production ramp-up scheduled for the second half of this year.
As the tariff war is posing a downside risk to the world economy, customers might become more cautious about signing new long-term supply agreements (LTAs), Hsu said.
The company had originally expected to secure new LTAs and prepayments from next year, but now anticipates a “a little bit” of a delay to the second half of next year, she said.
As of the end of last quarter, customer prepayments had declined 3.1 percent to NT$30.9 billion compared with the end of last year, the company said.
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