Industrial News

On October 11, the US semiconductor product packaging and test services provider Amkor Technology opened a mega factory for semiconductor assembly and testing in the northern province of Bac Ninh. The Vietnam campus is poised to become Amkor’s most extensive facility, occupying a substantial 57-acre expanse within Yen Phong 2C Industrial Park. Upon completion, it will feature 200,000 square meters of cleanroom space. Beginning with Advanced System in Package and memory production, the factory will offer turnkey solutions from design to electrical testing to the world’s leading semiconductor and electronic manufacturing companies. Amkor has committed $1.6 billion for the first two [...]

SEOUL, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics' (005930.KS) third-quarter profit is expected to drop 80% from a year earlier as the effects of an ongoing global chip glut drive losses in what is normally the South Korean tech giant's cash cow business. The world's biggest maker of memory chips, smartphones and televisions will announce its third-quarter preliminary earnings results on Wednesday. Operating profit likely fell to 2.1 trillion won ($1.56 billion) in the July-September quarter, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate from 19 analysts, weighted toward those who are more consistently accurate. It compares with an operating profit of 10.85 trillion won in [...]

Chinese industrial bearing manufacturer C&U is set to invest $150 million (approximately P8.5 billion) to build a cutting-edge production facility in the Philippines. This commitment was formalized during a recent high-profile investment mission to Beijing led by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), held between September 27 and 29. In a social media update shared Monday evening, PEZA chief Tereso Panga announced that C&U’s move marks one of the significant undertakings by Chinese enterprises in the near and medium term. The investment mission also drew participation from a cadre of distinguished Chinese firms, including heavyweight names like China Datang Corp., [...]

TOKYO, Japan — Toshiba said on Wednesday that a $14 billion tender offer to take the troubled Japanese conglomerate private is set to succeed. The announcement comes after a takeover scheme to delist Toshiba launched last month by a Japan Industrial Partners-led consortium closed on Wednesday. "We have received a report from the offeror that the tender offer is forecasted to be successful," Toshiba said in a statement. The final results will be announced once the company receives it, it said. In March, Toshiba said the tender offer would be called off if the consortium failed to buy at least [...]

AYALA Corp.’s AC Industrial Technology Holdings, Inc. has sold its stake in German auto parts maker MT Technologies GmbH (MT) in a bid to refocus on the expansion of its other units. In a stock exchange disclosure on Tuesday, Ayala said that AC Industrials completed an agreement on Aug. 18 for the sale of its 92.45% stake to Germany-based Callista Asset Management 18 GmbH, which is an affiliate of Callista Private Equity. “The transaction will result in an approximately 26 million euro loss, to be booked by AC Industrials and in turn Ayala,” the company said. AC Industrials’ shares in [...]

MALACAÑANG on Thursday said American semiconductor company Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) is considering an investment of up to $1 billion for the expansion of its facilities in Clark City and Baguio City in northern Philippines, in light of a potential global chip shortage. The company is set to submit in two weeks an application covering the expansion of its Clark and Baguio City sites, the palace said in a statement, citing US officials present during President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s Wednesday meeting with the US-ASEAN Business Council. The company’s plan aligns with the United States’ $280-billion CHIPS and Science Act [...]

MANILA  -The Ayala Group’s Integrated Micro-Electronics (IMI) booked a P4.7-billion ($84 million) loss from the sale of British subsidiary STI Enterprises Ltd. six years after it was acquired, underscoring persistent supply chain woes plaguing the sector. The electronics manufacturing arm of conglomerate Ayala Corp. said on Friday it agreed to sell 80 percent of STI, alongside minority stockholders owning the remaining 20 percent, to Rcapital, a private investment firm based in London. IMI said the $84 million writedown includes a non-cash goodwill charge of $55 million, cutting the company’s equity by 22 percent. IMI said this will affect its debt [...]

Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported a more than 95 percent plunge in operating profits in the second quarter owing to weak demand for memory chips. The firm is the flagship subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung Group, by far the largest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate business in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Operating profit from the April to June period was 668.5 billion won ($525.3 million), down from 14.1 trillion won from a year earlier, Samsung said in a statement. This marks the firm’s worst quarterly profit since the first quarter of 2009. Samsung’s second-quarter net profit fell 84.5 percent [...]

The Philippines’ exports and imports would take a hit from muted global demand coupled with penny-pinching domestic consumers amid high prices, said Moody’s Analytics. “Trade will be weak over coming months as foreign households pull back spending,” Moody’s Analytics said in a July 14 report released on Monday. This was despite a surprise 1.9 percent exports growth in May which ended five straight months of year-on-year drops, the think tank said, citing the government’s latest external trade data. Also, “high borrowing costs and elevated inflation will pinch local households, hurting imports,” Moody’s Analytics added. Filipinos are mostly dependent on imported [...]

New research from Omdia reveals that the semiconductor market declined in revenue for a fifth straight quarter in the first quarter of 2023. Source: Omdia This is the longest recorded period of decline since Omdia began tracking the market in 2002. Revenue in Q1 2023 settled at US$120.5B, down 9% from Q4 2022. The semiconductor market is cyclical, and this prolonged decline follows the upsurge as the market grew to record revenues in each quarter between Q4 2020 through Q4 2021 following increased demand from the global pandemic. The memory and micro processor chips (MPU) market are major areas of the [...]