Earnings Labs

ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. (ASX)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 7, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome, and thank you for standing by. [Operator Instructions] This conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. And I'll turn the call over to your host, Mr. Joseph Tung, CFO of ASE Inc. Sir, your line is open. You may begin.

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for attending ASE's Q4 2013 Earnings Release Conference Call. Before we start the presentation, please turn to Page 1. Here, on Page 1, is the Safe Harbor notice. I would like to remind everyone on this call that the presentation that follows may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to high degree of risks, and our actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. So during 2013, ASE has started to see synergies between our EMS and IC ATM businesses. These synergies in the form of SiP technology were well expressed during the fourth quarter. Even in a fairly neutral semiconductor business environment, we were able to continue growth and momentum within our SiP technology-related products. We believe that 2013 will be remembered as a critical juncture for differentiating ourselves from our competition and towards positioning ourselves for continued growth in the future. Given that our SiP technology-related products serve a new market for services appearing between classic EMS and IC ATM markets, we should expect to see higher volatility related to such businesses because the technology currently has high customer and product concentrations. Also, as we increase our SiP technology exposure, our financial statements may lack comparability to other business models. However, we believe that the incremental business that our SiP technology brings to us is very accretive to our EPS. We have a lot to go over today. We have a few extra slides related to the year end. So Page 2, quarter-over-quarter consolidated P&L. On a fully consolidated basis, the company delivered EPS for the quarter of TWD 0.73, TWD 0.16 greater than the third quarter and an increase of 28%. During Q4, on a consolidated basis, we saw our IC packaging, test and materials business…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jack Lu from CIMB.

Jack Lu - CIMB Research

Analyst

My first question is regarding your gross margin guidance for Q1. I know that you guys guided the consolidated gross margins, but can you give us some color on the individual entities, for example, the ATMs business and the EMS business, how the margin trends?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

Well, the overall gross profit margin will range -- will fall between 17% to 18%. And because of the different -- this nature, I think in terms of EMS, actually, the gross profit margin, because of the lower SiP and also WiFi modules revenue, gross margin at that level will be -- at that business will actually come up a bit to the level of around 1% improvement. And the -- but for the IC ATM, the margin will actually come down because of the lower loading.

Jack Lu - CIMB Research

Analyst

Okay. My second question, can you talk about your SiP as a percentage of your revenues, whether consolidated level or EMS or packaging?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

Well, at the consolidated level, the SiP represents about over 10% in fourth quarter. And for IC ATM, it's roughly over 6%.

Jack Lu - CIMB Research

Analyst

6%?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

6%.

Jack Lu - CIMB Research

Analyst

Okay. And how do you think that will trend into, say, Q2 or Q3?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

I think it will actually trend down a bit in Q1 and Q2. But I think the SiP business by its -- by the nature of this business, it can probably -- normally it starts to ramp up in the second half of the year. And we believe that if the ongoing projects continue to go as it is, at the end of the fourth quarter, in fourth quarter, we should be seeing our overall SiP revenue to account for more than 20% of the overall revenue.

Jack Lu - CIMB Research

Analyst

20% of the consolidated?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

Of the consolidated, yes.

Jack Lu - CIMB Research

Analyst

My last question, regarding your gross margins in Q4 that was better-than-expected. You talked about 3 reasons, right, copper wire, gold costs, product mix. So of these 3 factors, which one is -- has the biggest impact on your gross margin improvement?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

It's product mix. I think the -- particularly in the SiP business does help the margin a bit -- quite a bit. Although, actually there are not just 3. I think gold wire is one, higher copper, as well as higher bumping and such as CSP revenue also helped the margins.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is Szeho Ng from BNP.

Szeho Ng - BNP Paribas, Research Division

Analyst

With regard to your advanced packaging portfolio, do you also provide a further breakdown into flip-chip CSP and flip-chip BGA if possible?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

No, I don't have that with me.

Szeho Ng - BNP Paribas, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, all right. And for the flip-chip CSP business, are you seeing most of your customers on substrate consignment basis or basically you're doing the turnkey for your customers?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

They're both. I think some of the lower costs, such as CSP turnkey business, we are buying [ph] some of the materials. But, by and large, a lot of it is really still being outsourced.

Szeho Ng - BNP Paribas, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, all right. But what sort of trend are you seeing? Is it going towards the substrate consignment mode or towards the turnkey mode for, let's say, for the next couple of quarters?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

I don't have a good feel of it. It really depends on the business, the customers' requirement.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Gokul Hariharan from JPMorgan. Gokul Hariharan - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I had a couple of questions on the SiP market. Do we expect the SiP revenues to be primarily still consumer-driven, smartphone-driven kind of revenues in second half of this year? That's my first question. And second is, whom should we think about as competition for your SiP products? From what we have heard, I think Sharp or some of the other Japanese guys are competing with you guys. But how should we think about the competitive landscape for you guys in SiP?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

I think for this year, it will predominantly still be consumer-driven type of devices that we will be building for our customers. I think the process that we are engaging with our customer right now, both from EMS, as well as from IC ATM, are still consumer and, by and large, in the cellphone area, although it will expand into patent, other product -- mobile devices. In terms of competition, I think, yes, you're correct that the -- at this point, most of the primary competitor is the Japanese, although, they are playing -- they're really being the second source of the -- for the business. And primarily, I think our competitive edge is really not only from the technology that we have, but also from the scalability of our operation. And I think to be able to be efficient or effective in building SiP-type of products, you really need to have all technology in place, including at system level, design and logistics and also at IC level assembly tests, and by and large, in SATS [ph] as well. And at this point, we believe we're the only company that has all the ingredients. So from that perspective, I think the competition eventually will come either from the EMS people or from the OSAT players today. How soon they can integrate their operation or to expand their expertise into some -- a familiar areas for them, it really -- I think, the whole process will take some time. So I think we have -- we, in terms of competition landscape for SiP in particular, I think we are -- we do have quite sometime of -- ahead of our competitors at this point. Gokul Hariharan - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay, great. One last question from me. I think you guys had talked about your low-cost flip chip substrate solutions in-house material. Is there any progress on that front that we should expect this year? Or is it still too early?

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

It's still at its early stage. I think, we are -- we have 1 or 2 customers that are in mass production.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Currently, sir, we have no questions over the phone.

Hong Shi Tung

Analyst

Okay. Very great. Okay. We had a -- I think we had a very, very good fourth quarter and also a very good performance for the whole year in 2013. For 2014, we remain confident or comfortable that we will continue the healthy growth over -- both on the -- and also improvement on our margins. I think in the year, we should see sequential growth on the quarterly basis. Whatever we lost in the first quarter due to seasonality, I think the -- things will start to rebound, particularly in IC ATM area, things with still start to rebound in second quarter and going forward. EMS, I think it was the more second-half heavy. I think the distribution among -- on revenue should be mostly -- most of the growth will come from second half of the year. All-in-all, we are -- I think, we will continue to see a growth year for us. All right, with that, I will conclude the session today. Thank you very much, and happy new year.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That concludes the conference. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.