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ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. (ASX)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Apr 29, 2016

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Transcript

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

Hello. I am Ken Hsiang, Head of Investor Relations for ASE. Welcome to ASE Group's First Quarter 2016 Earnings Release. All participants consent to having their voice and questions broadcast via participation of this event. Please refer to page one of our presentation, which contains our 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 a high degree of risks, and our actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. The purposes of this presentation, dollar figures are generally stated in new Taiwan dollars, unless otherwise indicated. For the earnings release, I will be going over the financial results and then Joseph Tung, our CFO, will be answering questions during our Q&A session. Following the event, our VP In-Charge of Public Relations, Eddie Chang, will be addressing the media in Chinese. If we look back at the year, 2015 was a challenging downturn environment for our core IC ATM business. For us, much of the weakness in 2015 was driven by market share moves within the smartphone sector. For 2016, we see indications that Android-related smartphones are rebounding from their suboptimal 2015 product cycle. Inventory looks fairly healthy, customer forecasts appear reasonable, end markets are okay. There are still challenges for the industry and us this year; however, we believe we are in the midst of a modest V-shaped recovery. The first quarter generally performed as we expected. From an IC ATM perspective after a typical seasonally soft January and February, sales picked up during March, driven by smartphone inventory restocking. Our IC ATM business ended the quarter, declining a modest 7.5% sequentially. The sales result is on the higher end of our expectations, especially given that our SiP product performance…

Joseph Tung

Management

You're supposed to say you are concluding the presentation.

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

I'm concluding the presentation. Our Q&A session with Joseph.

Q - Randy Abrams

Management

Okay. Thank you. For the second quarter outlook, you have up here looks like a decent recovery. Could you talk about the areas across your business in ATM, if it's across end markets that you're recovering, I guess, moderate to approach fourth quarter would be about 8% growth. And is there any degree of pricing, like your competitor highlighted or flagged more pricing. If you're seeing like an annual price reset or across any parts of your business you're seeing more price pressure.

Joseph Tung

Management

I think it's very typical to us as the every latter part of the year, they will see a round of price renegotiations and most of the price adjustments were down at that point. So, going into second quarter, I think the pricing environment strategy stabilizes. So, whatever we're seeing in the second quarter is going to happen in stable pricing environment.

Randy Abrams

Management

How does this year compare like the annual reset this year versus the last couple of years? Was there any different...

Joseph Tung

Management

I think because of the softness in the second half of last year, we've seen a bit more severe pricing pressure last year. Well, I think that's very typical to nothing that's really abnormal and I don't think it's a result of any transaction that is taking place.

Randy Abrams

Management

Then I wanted to ask on the SiP business where you're rebalancing projects, maybe if you talk about a moderate decline if that would be double digit? I mean just a rough framework for how to think about a moderate decline in EMS? And then for full year, your view for a kind of cross permit declined. I mean just given some projects going, what you might expect full year a ballpark range or how that looks and also for gross margin if you stay around this level?

Joseph Tung

Management

Well, I think as mentioned, this year we're focusing on rebalancing. We'll be very, very selective in terms of choosing what to do and what not to do. And if we're looking at the current portfolio, I think there will be projects that we'll be holding steady. There will be projects that we will try to improve its overall margins and also returns. There will be projects that we may gradually wind down because of the low-margin perspective was also the - there is not that much value-add that we can provide. And also there will be projects that we may see - that we supply for the year-end. But at the same time, we will continue to build our pipeline for new devices or new projects with new customers. So, all-in-all, I think it will be a challenging year in terms of difficulty for us, not because of the overall - but of course one is the whatever portfolio that we're having now is going through some difficult time, and we have to wait until second half of the year to see how things will shape up. So, at this point, I think it's a bit early to tell that how the overall SiP business for us, particularly from the EMS perspective, will shape up for the whole year. Right now, I think we are at the very bottom in the first half, and that's a combination of - so we had an exceptional year last year - first half of last year, combined with the overall softness in particular products.

Randy Abrams

Management

And I guess is there a way to think about moderate like the type of decline because down 37% in Q1, a rough range for what moderate?

Joseph Tung

Management

It will be single digit.

Randy Abrams

Management

Okay. Good to know. The last question, I wanted to ask on the Deca, the deal you signed, that gives you fan-out packaging and maybe talk if that's exclusive with Deca and how it compares to others in the market like you licensed Infineon before. How it compares to InFO or the eWLB and positions you for fan-out business?

Joseph Tung

Management

Well, I think the Deca transaction is really one of our continuing efforts to expand our overall technology portfolio particularly in the fan-out area. This is one we see as a lower cost solution, addressing a different market segment or customer base from InFO. I think the licensing - it comes up - it's composed of two parts. One is of course the technology transfers. And also there will be equity investment in Deca itself so that we enjoy whatever upside there is once the technology is fully developed.

Randy Abrams

Management

But, how does the sales channel work, like Deca has their own sales team and ASE would have a sales team or do you...

Joseph Tung

Management

I think after the arrangement, I think most of the mass production capacity will be set as ASE. And Deca will remain as a research center or R&D center for the technology itself.

Randy Abrams

Management

And I guess, roughly, when will you expect revenue [indiscernible].

Joseph Tung

Management

I don't think there will be meaningful revenue this year because we're in the phase of having the technology transferred over. And there will be a lot of further development for us to get into the panel [indiscernible] the CapEx will set up the capacity. So I think the overall revenue would only be meaningful maybe next year.

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

Name and company, please.

Bill Lu

Management

Hi. Bill Lu, UBS. So I think Randy asked the same question, but I'm not sure that I heard the answers. If you look at the moderate growth in 2Q, what segments are doing well? Is it China smartphones? What are the outperformers?

Joseph Tung

Management

Well, I think it's pretty much across the board except maybe we can see further strength - a bit more strength in the industrial and automotive. But communication will continue to be relatively weaker for us largely because of the SiP movement.

Bill Lu

Management

Can you give us the number of bonders added and testers added this quarter?

Joseph Tung

Management

Bonders added were 68, seven retired. Testers added 73; 55 retired.

Bill Lu

Management

And then just a last question on the pricing adjustment this year. Again, is that pretty much across the board or is it within a certain vertical?

Joseph Tung

Management

First of all, I think it's across the board, but it's a normal business arrangement every particularly last quarter of the year, there will be a round of pricing renegotiations, but there are some with very little adjustments, some with larger investments depending on the customers.

Bill Lu

Management

You still cited the competition from China as one of the reasons. Do you see the same thing?

Joseph Tung

Management

Yeah. I think China's competition is always there and after the acquisition of STATS ChipPAC I think allows the JCET to be more aggressive because there will be more technology offerings that they can provide. Yeah. But I think the overall competition is there and the market unfortunately is softer. So it looks a bit thinner last year. But I think things are starting to stabilize as we see the overall markets start to recover.

Bill Lu

Management

Sorry, one last question. Ken, can you tell us the expectation for CapEx for capacity increases in 2Q?

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

I think for the...

Joseph Tung

Management

Well, I'll be answering that.

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

Sure.

Joseph Tung

Management

CapEx as a whole, I think, for this year would be higher than last year. I think last year we had overall equipment and machinery above close to NT$600 million. I think this year it will be a notch higher. But I don't think it will go over our depreciation - below depreciation amount.

Bill Lu

Management

I guess I'm just a little bit curious because at the tone that I hear, sort of, cautious on the demand and yet you guys still [indiscernible] everyone's adding equipment or bonders. How do you explain that?

Joseph Tung

Management

Well, I think wirebonding, I think we still have the - we have the largest copper wire on the installed base. And I think still it's really the second largest in that space. So I think I should say both of us are getting shares in terms of wirebonding. And therefore, there is still some further investment in wirebonders required for the year, although it's not going to be at the kind of magnitude as before.

Bill Lu

Management

Thank you very much.

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

The rate of CapEx investment is actually still below depreciation and amortization [indiscernible].

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

Name and company, please.

Rick Hsu

Analyst

Yeah. Rick Hsu from Daiwa Securities.

Joseph Tung

Management

Thank you.

Rick Hsu

Analyst

I just want to elaborate a little more about Bill Lu's - maybe some housekeeping questions. Regarding your Q1 wirebond [indiscernible] and also your bonders, can give us your traditional rates?

Joseph Tung

Management

In terms of Q1, I think that - let me put it out - in Q1 in terms of wirebonding, we're about low 70s. Advanced packaging, we're mid-70s. Testing at low 70s [indiscernible] high 70s. I think going into the second quarter, I think in terms of Packaging, it will all be increased to high 70s while testing will also improve from low to mid 70s.

Rick Hsu

Analyst

All right. So second quarter will be high 70s for your wirebond and [indiscernible] mid 70 for Testing, right? Okay, just to make sure. And one more question, what about your capacity increase for second quarter? Any plan for that capacity increase in the second quarter across the board?

Joseph Tung

Management

I think we will start to shift some bonders. And I think, right now the wirebonding is pretty full, and there will be some investment starting from second quarter, then going into pumping [indiscernible].

Rick Hsu

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. That's it from me.

Joseph Tung

Management

I think to put things into perspective, I think the overall distribution of our CapEx for the year would be roughly 60% in Packaging, roughly a quarter into Test. I think evenly spread it out between Material and EMS.

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

Any additional questions. We don't have any questions online. Name and company, please.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

Thank you. Sebastian from CLSA. So my first question is to follow on the first quarter margin because as you recall that in the last conference, Joseph, you guided that the margin of IC ATM will be similar to your first quarter of 2014, so that's around 24%, but then the margin is 22%. So there is a 2 percentage miss. And then on your EMS margin side, you guided to down sequentially, but you're up sequentially in the end. So can you explain to us what's the [indiscernible] here? Thank you.

Joseph Tung

Management

It's the same answer for the two different results. On the IC ATM, I think the margin is a bit lower because the overall SiP revenue decline is larger than expected. Therefore, it created further pressure on the margin [indiscernible]. For the same reason, because most of the - some of the, let's say, product EMS or EMS side is only looking after the logistics part of it, so it will be based on a fee kind of arrangement. And therefore the margin if you have a look at the fee as a margin, then this margin is lower. So we'll see lower SiP revenue in EMS, it actually helps the product mix in terms of the margin - the gross margin. So one is lower, the other is higher for the same reason.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

Thank you. And going forward, can we have this expectation for your structural margin on the EMS side to be better to improve because in your prepared remarks that you mentioned that you're going to be more selective on the SiP project, but supposedly, we could expect the margin on that side can improve, so the overall EMS structural margin may likely improve. So can we assume that?

Joseph Tung

Management

Yeah. That's the game plan. Yes.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

And my third question is on the - Joseph, can you give us an updated guidance on your expectations for the IC ATM business [indiscernible] this year. As you recall, three months ago, I think the COO mentioned that the IC ATM would be flat or slightly up, [indiscernible] goes up flat to slightly up, so what's your expectation now after three months.

Joseph Tung

Management

Well, in terms of the overall IC ATM, I think we remain - the way we look at the overall business, I think our view remains the same except the composition may be a little bit different. I think the traditional IC ATM could be a bit stronger than we originally expected for the year, whereas in terms of [indiscernible] as I mentioned earlier, we are really in the mode of rebalancing the whole business. And so we're not aggressively trying to increase the volumes to take on more projects unless the return or profit growth is justifiable. And also I think one of the factors that we have to look at is really how the end market would be - or the sell-through would be in the later part of the year in terms of the SiP products. So I think overall it would be a bit challenging for us to keep the same SiP revenue from EMS perspective as last year. But IC ATM, I think we are still keeping the same view on this.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

Yesterday, still they talked about they expect the overall OSAT business to grow 78% year-on-year this year. That's even higher than the overall semiconductor growth and even higher than the foundries growth. Foundries [indiscernible] guidance given by TSMC and UMC. And I'm not sure what do you think?

Joseph Tung

Management

I obviously can't speak for him, but...

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

I mean, what's your expectation for the group?

Joseph Tung

Management

Well, as I mentioned, we are giving the same view as [indiscernible] we're seeing good potential of, first of all, sequential growth on a quarterly basis and also a moderate growth for the year. Whether 8% is moderate or not depends on how you do think.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

So on the SPIL stock, sorry, I want to dig into more detail because earlier the guidance was flat to slightly up, so does this still hold?

Joseph Tung

Management

No. As I mentioned, it will be challenging.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

More challenging than...

Joseph Tung

Management

It will be challenging.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

[Indiscernible] months ago.

Joseph Tung

Management

I think the reason I said this is because we're seeing first quarter and second quarter of the year seems to be weaker than we originally have said for very obvious reasons. But then again, it's even harder to tell how second half will [indiscernible] sell-through of the next-generation product that we're going through.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

Okay. Sorry, I have another question on the Deca, your cooperation with Deca. So I noticed that in your official announcement because you're paying the fixed licensing fee upfront and then there will be a royalty following when you sell the product. So I wonder what's the margin of this look like because you [indiscernible] and then you need to pay the royalty to Deca. So, will that [indiscernible] fan-out technologies from Deca when you sell this, the margin will be higher or similar or too below your IC ATM average?

Joseph Tung

Management

Of course, when we get into this, we look at the technology. We believe that it will generate very reasonable, healthy return for us to get into it. And when we're kind of evaluating this, of course we will put the payment of royalty into consideration. We decide what kind of margin or returns. Overall, return or margins, we should be happy.

Sebastian Hou

Analyst

Thank you.

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

Any more questions? No questions online.

Kenneth Hsiang

Management

Again, thank you very much for attending the ASE conference of earnings release.