King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子) yesterday said it would shut down its factories for 48 hours to be thoroughly disinfected amid concern over COVID-19 infections linked to its manufacturing campus in Miaoli County.
As of yesterday, 67 King Yuan employees, mostly migrant workers from the Philippines, had tested positive for the disease after a large-scale rapid screening program was launched for the company’s 7,300 workers.
King Yuan, a chip testing and packaging service provider, had resisted halting production for fear of disrupting supply, kindling anger among employees and nearby residents.
Photo provided by King Yuan Electronics Co via CNA
King Yuan, headquartered in Hsinchu City, counts handset chip supplier MediaTek Inc (聯發科), display driver IC maker Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠) and international corporations among its customers.
The production disruption would reduce output and revenue alike by between 4 and 6 percent this month, as its six plants in Hsinchu, and Miaoli’s Tongluo (銅鑼) and (竹南) Jhunan townships would shut down.
King Yuan posted NT$2.86 billion (US$103.17 million) in revenue last month, expanding 10.72 percent from NT$2.58 billion in May last year. That brought the company’s revenue in the first five months of this year to NT$12.17 billion, up 8.87 percent year-on-year.
The shutdown would not affect its financial performance for the full year this year, the company said.
King Yuan was the world’s No. 8 chip testing and packaging service provider last quarter, with revenue of NT$267 million, a tally market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) showed.
That gave King Yuan a market share of 3.7 percent.
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