PCB and IC carrier manufacturers are tightening their spending, while equipment manufacturers believe that the third quarter will be more prosperous

This outlook is mainly due to the tightening of capital expenditures by PCB factories this year. The original procurement amount for equipment was not high, and it is extremely unwilling to recognize expenses in the fourth quarter of 2023. If it is not necessary equipment, the delivery date would rather be postponed to 2024.

At the same time, PCB equipment manufacturers not only hope for an improvement in demand in 2024, but also hope to accelerate the development of semiconductor and packaging equipment that are still growing rapidly and have high gross margins through their core technologies and strategic alliance partners, in order to actively improve the development progress of this field.

The equipment factory Xunde's revenue in the third quarter of this year was NT $1.238 billion (unit: same below), a quarterly decrease of 23.63% and an annual decrease of 22.81%. The estimated revenue for the fourth quarter is flat, and the legal representative estimates that Xunde's annual revenue for this year is around 5.8 billion yuan, which is not much different from 2022.

As a TSMC supplier, Xunde's equipment applications have already been manufactured across PCB packaging and IC wafers. In the second half of 2023, the demand for semiconductor expansion at home and abroad is still optimistic. Moreover, due to the shift of the structure of shipping equipment towards packaging and IC wafer manufacturing, it is estimated that the proportion of packaging and IC wafer manufacturing revenue for the entire year of 2023 will increase to 20-25%, with an annual growth of 50%. The proportion will further increase in 2024.

Looking ahead, Xunde believes that the demand for IC manufacturing and packaging testing in the second half of the year is still stable, and the company has sufficient orders in hand. Due to the advanced packaging driving the demand for IC manufacturing, the company has also achieved success with the rapid expansion of advanced packaging factories, and there are also good opportunities for the advancement of advanced manufacturing processes in wafer manufacturing.

In the third quarter of 2023, Mude's revenue was 415 million yuan, a decrease of 28.19% quarterly and 6.52% annually. However, Mude estimates that the revenue in the fourth quarter will still decline compared to the third quarter. The main reason for the continuous decline in Mude's revenue is the tightening of capital expenditures by PCB factories since the beginning of this year. At the same time, Mude has further screened potential order customers for credit, and some equipment orders from carrier factories have been requested to be delayed, which has also led to a decline in revenue since the second half of this year.

In the first half of 2023, Mude achieved a revenue of 1.11 billion yuan, a gross profit margin of 62.89%, an annual increase of 5.5 percentage points, a net profit after tax of 324 million yuan, an annual decrease of 7.23%, and a net profit per share of 7.12 yuan.

After becoming the largest legal shareholder through private equity participation by SunMoon Investment Holdings, Mude is expected to help both parties collaborate to explore more semiconductor sealing and testing application equipment. Starting from 2024, Mude's revenue share in semiconductor application equipment is expected to increase.

Mude pointed out that end customers in Europe and America require their suppliers to diversify their production bases to reduce geopolitical risks. The trend for PCB factories to establish factories in Southeast Asia has been determined, and PCB factories have successively announced plans to set up factories in Southeast Asia. Most manufacturers announced the acquisition of land around 2023 and are expected to complete their factories in 2024 and start production in 2025. Mude closely cooperates with customers, matches their factory construction plans, and timely provides localized service capabilities.

（Extract from IT Home）