GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday gave a lukewarm business outlook, saying that its revenue would be flat or grow by a single-digit percentage this year, as customers digest inventories slower than expected.
That means this year GlobalWafers would lag behind the global semiconductor industry’s revenue growth, which is estimated to be 15 to 20 percent year-on-year.
The company’s revenue last year increased 0.5 percent to NT$70.65 billion (US$2.24 billion), from NT$70.29 billion the previous year, its financial statement showed.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
“Some of our customers still see their inventory days remain high. The positive thing is that the number is declining. Customers are taking actions to bring down their stock, but the speed is slower than we expected,” GlobalWafers chair Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) told investors yesterday. “They prioritize consuming their inventory first before pulling in a new long-term agreement.”
GlobalWafers expects a more marked recovery in the second half of this year, after hitting the bottom this quarter, thanks to its customers’ improving inventory days and factory utilization, Hsu said.
Due to fewer supply agreements secured with its customers, the company reported a reduction in prepayments last quarter at NT$35.4 billion, sliding from NT$37.9 billion in the previous quarter.
The downtrend is likely to persist in the next two years, before growth resumes in 2026, thanks to rising demand for advanced chips, Hsu said.
GlobalWafers expects scant room for an improvement in its gross margin, given higher depreciation costs stemming from its capacity expansions worldwide and rising utility costs, the firm said.
GlobalWafers’ gross margin fell to 37.4 percent last year, from 43.2 percent in 2022.
The firm said artificial intelligence (AI) servers stimulate demand for advanced chips, such as high-bandwidth memory as well as mature chips.
The semiconductor industry is expected to benefit from the AI boom, it said.
This year would be the peak of the company’s capacity expansion globally, including fabs in Taiwan, Japan, Italy, South Korea, the US and Denmark, GlobalWafers said.
About half of the company’s three-year NT$100 billion capital expenditure budget would be allocated for this year, after spending 30 percent of the amount last year, it said.
GlobalWafers is scheduled to send samples to customers from its US facilities in the fourth quarter of this year, before ramping up production early next year, it said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the