Yageo Corp (國巨), the world’s third-largest multilayer ceramic capacitor supplier, yesterday said that revenue would grow moderately this quarter, as robust demand pushes its order backlog to a record high.
The growth momentum has continued from last quarter, when Yageo’s revenue rose 6.1 percent sequentially and 22.7 percent annually to a record high of NT$38.17 billion (US$1.21 billion).
Net profit jumped 18.5 percent to NT$8 billion last quarter, from NT$6.75 billion in the previous quarter. On an annual basis, it soared 44.67 percent from NT$5.53 billion.
Photo: Wen-Yee Lee, Reuters
Gross margin this quarter is expected to rise moderately from 38.1 percent last quarter, the highest in about 14 quarters, Yageo CEO David Wang (王淡如) told an online earnings conference.
“Our book-to-bill ratio has climbed past 1. For AI [artificial intelligence] related products, the ratio is much higher than the average,” Wang said.
Yageo plans to increase its utilization rate slightly next quarter as demand grows, he said.
The company expects equipment utilization for specialty products to rise to about 85 percent this quarter from about 80 percent last quarter, while that for commodity products would improve to about 75 percent from 70 percent, he added.
“We see a very positive business momentum, and our first-quarter results were better than expected,” Wang said.
The company expects second-quarter results to remain solid, as it has adjusted prices, increased equipment utilization and added extra capacity, he said.
Yageo raised prices several times last quarter and said it would continue increasing them this quarter, given surges in material costs and robust customer demand, especially for AI-related passive components.
The company’s tantalum capacitors are used in AI servers utilizing Nvidia Corp’s chips. More than 30 percent of its tantalum capacitor revenue came from AI-related products, it said.
AI-related passive components are to contribute about 15 percent to the company’s revenue this quarter.
They accounted for 12 percent of its revenue in the final quarter of last year, Yageo said.
The company’s order visibility for passive components used in AI-related applications extends through the second half of this year, Yageo chief operating officer Claudio Lollini said.
The company remains “cautiously optimistic” about demand for other segments, he said.
A shortage of memory chips and central processing units has seen Yageo’s customers postpone some programs, but the company has not seen any tangible impact so far, Lollini said.
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