King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子), an integrated circuit testing service provider, yesterday broke ground for a new plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which is expected to create up to 1,000 jobs in the area.
It is the first of two King Yuan plants scheduled to be built at the Tongluo Industrial Park. The first is expected to be completed by the end of next year, but no schedule has been set for the second plant.
The first plant will provide wafer-testing services with the use of needle probes, and its product lines will include optical sensor and LCD driver ICs, the company said.
Photo: CNA
King Yuan chairman Lee Chin-kung (李金恭) said the new plant will bring about 500 to 1,000 jobs to the area. It is expected to take on some of the semiconductor testing services from the company’s other four plants, he added.
The company is investing NT$5 billion (US$171.82 million) to NT$10 billion in the new plant, Lee said.
He also estimated that the company will see sequential sales decline this quarter as clients will want to ease year-end inventory pressure, forecasting that gross margin this quarter will be below 30 percent.
King Yuan posted revenue of NT$1.1 billion last month, down 4.32 percent month-on-month but up 18.3 percent year-on-year.
Cumulated revenue was NT$11.67 billion from January to last month, up 10.17 percent from the same period of last year.
Institutional investors have forecast that the company’s revenue for the fourth quarter of this year will drop by 5 percent to 8 percent from the previous quarter.
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