Grand Process Technology Corp (GPTC, 弘塑科技), an advanced chip packaging equipment supplier, yesterday gave a bullish outlook for this year, saying it expects revenue to grow to a record high thanks to increasing customer demand amid new capacity expansion plans.
GPTC supplies a wide range of semiconductor wet processing equipment used in advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology, including wet benches, wet cleaning and single wafer set processing systems.
GPTC counts Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) among its major customers.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
TSMC has been expanding CoWoS capacity to satisfy the surging demand for Nvidia Corp’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips, while ASE expanded capacity aggressively this year, because of the AI boom.
“The company has been digesting order backlogs since the second half of last year. We are working around the clock to solve this issue. Revenue this year will certainly grow [over last year],” GPTC chairman Hoton Chang (張鴻泰) said yesterday. “We are optimistic about the full-year business prospects. The second half will be a better period than the first.”
Cumulative revenue soared 51.1 percent year-on-year to NT$2.32 billion (US$78.3 million) during the first five months of this year, after last month’s figure hit a record NT$522 million.
In terms of equipment shipments, GPTC expects to see an annual expansion of more than 10 percent, company president Jao Huang (黃富源) said.
“We are currently discussing new order arrangements with customers. Overall, we are quite positive about ordering, despite US-China trade policies weighing on the external environment,” Huang said.
To cope with strong customer demand, the company plans to double its wet processing equipment capacity this year, GPTC said on the sidelines of the company’s annual general meeting in Hsinchu County’s Jhubei City (竹北).
GPTC also said it plans to issue new convertible bonds to fund new investments or merger-and-acquisition deals.
To hedge foreign exchange risks, the company is trying to lower its US dollar-denominated assets by encouraging overseas customers to make payments in New Taiwan dollar, yuan or euro, it said.
The new mechanism, which took effect last month, would cut the company’s revenue in US dollar terms from 30 percent to about 10 percent, the company said.
In addition, the company has cut its US-dollar cash position from as high as US$40 million to about US$7 million by converting a large portion of its cash into NT dollars, it said.
Most local companies are facing challenges given the volatility of foreign exchange rates, with the NT dollar appreciating about 10 percent since April, GPTC said.
Shareholders yesterday approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$22 per common share. That represented a payout ratio of 75.68 percent based on the company’s earnings per share of NT$29.07 last year.
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