Chip tester King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子), which counts Nvidia Corp and Broadcom Inc among its customers, yesterday raised this year’s capital expenditure by 37 percent to a new record high of NT$37 billion (US$1.24 billion) from its previous estimate, to accelerate capacity expansion amid growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips and customized application-specific ICs for AI applications.
It was the second hike by King Yuan this year from a NT$26.97 billion budget approved by its board of directors in May, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
On an annual basis, that represented a spike from NT$14.86 billion spent last year on new facilities and equipment.
Photo: CNA
The company in May also said it has acquired a new manufacturing facility for NT$327 million in Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) in a bid to expand high-end chip testing capacity.
In addition, King Yuan said the board has approved a new capital injection plan of S$100 million (US$77.8 million) for its Singaporean subsidiary, KYEC Singapore Pte Ltd, according to a separate company filing.
The new funding plan triggered speculation that King Yuan is mulling to build a new fab in the city-state amid growing geopolitical risks.
As part of the firm’s capacity expansion efforts, the board of directors yesterday also approved a plan to issue 80 million new shares via a rights issue to its existing shareholders to fund the purchases of new manufacturing equipment.
King Yuan yesterday reported that net profit soared 98 percent to NT$6.47 billion in the first half of this year, compared with NT$3.27 billion in the same period of last year.
That translated into earnings per share of NT$5.29 in the first half, up from NT$2.68 a year earlier.
Gross margin rose mildly to 34.56 percent from 34.19 percent.
Revenue expanded 25.34 percent year-on-year to NT$16.68 billion in the first half of this year, from NT$12.52 billion.
The company did not give the latest revenue breakdown, but company data showed that final test services was the biggest revenue contributor in the first quarter, accounting for 45.7 percent. Wafer probing services came next with a 37.2 percent share.
Shiina Ito has had fewer Chinese customers at her Tokyo jewelry shop since Beijing issued a travel warning in the wake of a diplomatic spat, but she said she was not concerned. A souring of Tokyo-Beijing relations this month, following remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan, has fueled concerns about the impact on the ritzy boutiques, noodle joints and hotels where holidaymakers spend their cash. However, businesses in Tokyo largely shrugged off any anxiety. “Since there are fewer Chinese customers, it’s become a bit easier for Japanese shoppers to visit, so our sales haven’t really dropped,” Ito
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
OUTLOOK: Pat Gelsinger said he did not expect the heavy AI infrastructure investments by the major cloud service providers to cause an AI bubble to burst soon Building a resilient energy supply chain is crucial for Taiwan to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology and grow its economy, former Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger said yesterday. Gelsinger, now a general partner at the US venture capital firm Playground Global LLC, was asked at a news conference in Taipei about his views on Taiwan’s hardware development and growing concern over an AI bubble. “Today, the greatest issue in Taiwan isn’t even in the software or in architecture. It is energy,” Gelsinger said. “You are not in the position to have a resilient energy supply chain, and that,
RSS