Jiwei.com News, according to Taiwanese media reports, due to the recession of the global semiconductor market, the Taiwan branch of packaging and testing manufacturer Amkor has reported layoffs, firing the first shot of layoffs in semiconductor supply chain this year.
The company held a legal meeting in the United States yesterday morning, announcing that its fourth quarter of 2018 revenue was US$1.081 billion, with a gross profit margin of 16.9%, and an after-tax earnings per share. Although it was higher than expected, it declined compared with the previous quarter, with profits halved; the annual revenue was US$4.316 billion, an annual increase of 3%, with a gross profit margin of 16.5%, a yearly decrease of 1.6 percentage points, and an after-tax earnings per share of US$0.53, a significant decrease from US$1.1 in the same period of the previous year.
It is understood that due to the high proportion of mobile phone business of Amkor's Taiwan branch, in order to cope with the recent market recession, we began to adjust the shifts, and some production line employees changed from doing 4 breaks to doing 2 breaks. The reduction in working hours meant that salaries also decreased. The employees even revealed that after reducing the working days, the company will lay off nearly 100 employees at the end of this month. Amkor did not respond to this news positively yesterday, but said that he would communicate with the labor unit and everything would be handled in accordance with the law.
Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2019, Amkor estimated revenue will be between US$840 and US$920 million, a quarterly decrease of 14.9% to 22.3%, and the gross profit margin will further reduce to 9% to 13%, with a net loss of US$16 million to US$64 million. Amkor pointed out that the decline in operation mainly reflects that smartphones are currently undergoing inventory adjustments.
Amkor's main products include wafer bumps, crystal-covered packaging, wafer-level packaging, test processes, etc., and are used in communications, consumer electronics, network equipment and other fields. In Taiwan, there are Longtan Factory, Hukou Factory, Advanced Factory, etc., especially the T6 new factory in Zhuke Longtan Park was completed and opened in September last year. Ma Guanghua, general manager of Amkor, Taiwan, once estimated that the new factory could increase Taiwan's Aker's performance by 10%, and the Taiwan factory is expected to account for about 15% of Amkor's overall revenue.
In addition, due to the market recession, Riyueguang Investment Control and Licheng do not require employees to work overtime, but there is no plan to lay off employees.
