Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋半導體), the world’s largest pure-play gallium arsenide foundry, yesterday revised downward its gross margin forecast for last quarter due to the substantial appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar.
Win Semiconductors was the first among local electronics companies to downwardly adjust its gross margin, blaming volatility of foreign exchange rates.
In the final quarter of last year, the NT dollar appreciated about 2.12 percent to NT$28.508 versus the US greenback.
Photo courtesy of Southern Taiwan Science Park Administration
The chipmaker said that its gross margin would be about 35 percent in the quarter ended on Dec. 31, rather than 37 to 39 percent, as estimated in October last year, a company statement submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
The new forecast indicates that Win Semiconductor is likely to see gross margin decline at a steeper rate from 43.4 percent in the third quarter.
In its initial forecast, the company expected gross margin to drop due to an increase in shipments of products used in smartphones.
The Taoyuan-based chipmaker produces wafers used in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers for Apple Inc’s iPhone 12 series to unlock the smartphones via facial recognition, as well as power amplifiers for the company’s first 5G devices.
In a separate filing, Win Semiconductors reported that revenue last month climbed 0.37 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of NT$2.3 billion (US$80.97 million) from NT$2.29 billion a year earlier.
During the final quarter of last year, revenue rose 5.08 percent from the third quarter, surpassing the company’s previous estimate of low-single-digit percentage growth.
For the whole of last year, revenue increased 18.81 percent to NT$25.37 billion from NT$21.35 billion in 2019.
Win Semiconductors’ local rival, Visual Photonics Epitaxy Co (全新), yesterday said that revenue last month soared 28.39 percent to NT$289.42 million from NT$225.43 million a year earlier, bringing last quarter’s revenue to NT$757 million, up 1.9 percent annually.
For the whole of last year, revenue grew 4.51 percent to NT$2.64 billion — a record — from NT$4.53 billion in 2019.
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