The Fair Trade Commission yesterday approved MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) application to acquire local rival MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體), saying the merger would not hamper market competition.
That will pave the way for MediaTek, the nation’s No. 1 handset chip designer, to complete its first-stage acquisition of the world’s top TV chip supplier later this month, by taking up a 48 percent stake in MStar. The mobile phone chipmaker will start including about half of MStar’s monthly revenue into its revenue next month, MediaTek told investors on Tuesday.
MediaTek plans to fully acquire MStar for NT$115 billion (US$3.83 billion) in a cash-and-share offer by the first quarter of next year.
“As the companies involved in this case export a massive portion of their products overseas, it is difficult to say the combination will significantly boost the new entity’s ability to increase product prices as they are facing competition from bigger global rivals,” the commission said in a statement yesterday.
Besides, the merger would not make it any easier for the new entity to take joint actions with its rivals to prevent new players from entering the market, the commission said.
The merger “will help enhance the country’s overall competitiveness in TV controller chips to compete with global rivals,” the commission said.
“The merger will create bigger business interests rather than the adverse impact of hampering competition,” it said.
The share price of MediaTek rose 6.86 percent to NT$272.50 yesterday after the chip company on Tuesday issued a stronger-than-expected revenue and gross margin forecast for this quarter.
Gross margin would improve to between 41 percent and 43 percent in the current quarter, compared with 40.8 percent last quarter, on expectations that shipments of higher-margin smartphone chips would outpace those of feature phone chips and become the company’s biggest revenue source.
Higher-margin 3G smartphone chips would account for a bigger share, or 60 percent of overall smartphone chip shipments this quarter, from 30 percent last quarter, MediaTek said.
The gross margin forecast was higher than the 40 percent projected by Barclays analyst Andrew Lu (陸行之), who said in a note on Tuesday that it would be the first improvement following quarter-on-quarter declines over the past 10 quarters.
MediaTek said its revenue would expand between 13 percent and 18 percent sequentially to between NT$26.5 billion and NT$27.7 billion this quarter, beating Lu’s expectation of 11 percent growth.
Lu added MediaTek to his top pick list because of the strong guidance, with the target price unchanged at NT$340, and retained his “overweight’ rating on the chipmaker.
MediaTek expected as much as one-third of its revenues this quarter would come from selling smartphone chips, citing robust demand for its low and medium-end smartphone chips after Chinese telecoms operators began promoting smartphones with a cheaper price tag of 600 yuan (US$94) per unit.
Strong demand prompted MediaTek to raise its smartphone chip shipment forecast again to 95 million units this year from its previous estimate of 75 million units.
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
Germany is to establish its first-ever national pavilion at Semicon Taiwan, which starts tomorrow in Taipei, as the country looks to raise its profile and deepen semiconductor ties with Taiwan as global chip demand accelerates. Martin Mayer, a semiconductor investment expert at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), Germany’s international economic promotion agency, said before leaving for Taiwan that the nation is a crucial partner in developing Germany’s semiconductor ecosystem. Germany’s debut at the international semiconductor exhibition in Taipei aims to “show presence” and signal its commitment to semiconductors, while building trust with Taiwanese companies, government and industry associations, he said. “The best outcome
Semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to double this year, as manufacturers in the industry are keen to expand production to meet strong global demand for artificial intelligence applications, according to SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain. Speaking at a news conference before the opening of Semicon Taiwan trade show tomorrow, SEMI director of industry research and statistics Clark Tseng (曾瑞榆) said semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to grow by an annual 100 percent this year, beating an earlier estimate of 70 percent growth. He said that Taiwan received a boost from a
RSS