Chip packaging and testing service provider ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂科技) yesterday gave a muted revenue outlook for the second half of this year as customers became conservative amid US tariff uncertainty and diminishing front-loading demand.
“We are continuing to monitor whether the front-loading demand in the first and second quarters would affect the momentum in the second half of this year,” ChipMOS chairman Cheng Chih-chieh (鄭世杰) told a teleconference.
Cheng did not directly respond to an investor’s question about the likelihood of revenue reduction in the second half of the year. Three months ago, the company said it expected a better second half than the first.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
ChipMOS usually posts stronger revenue in the second half of a year, compared with the first half, following the electronics sector’s seasonal patterns.
“The whole supply chain is monitoring the subsequent developments after the 90-day pause of the US [“reciprocal”] tariffs ends. As customers tend to take a conservative approach, it is difficult to have a clear view about the industry’s situation,” Cheng said.
ChipMOS reported that net profit last quarter plunged 60 percent to NT$176.3 million (US$5.79 million) from NT$437.8 million a year earlier, and down 24 percent from NT$232.2 million the previous quarter.
Gross margin dropped to 9.4 percent, compared with 14.2 percent a year earlier and 9.5 percent the previous quarter, while earnings per share were NT$0.24, down from NT$0.6 in the same period last year and NT$0.32 in the previous quarter.
However, revenue grew 2 percent to NT$5.53 billion from NT$5.42 billion a year earlier, up 2.5 percent from NT$5.4 billion the previous quarter, thanks to rush orders from customers, the company said.
The company expects the memorychip segment to have better growth momentum than display driver ICs this quarter and in the second half, attributable to a rebound in DRAM prices and increasing demand for flash memory chips used in artificial intelligence devices, Cheng said.
The visibility for display driver ICs would be vague, he said.
ChipMOS would focus on boosting its factory utilization rate this quarter, after the rate improved slightly to 62 percent last quarter from 59 percent the previous quarter, he said.
The company would also cautiously budget its capital spending for this year to better control the subsequent depreciation costs, Cheng said.
Last year, the company allocated NT$5.45 billion for capital expenditures, with depreciation costs topping NT$4.86 billion.
The company’s board of directors approved a new share buyback program to prop up its share prices. It plans to repurchase 15 million common shares for three months through July 13.
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