VLSI: This year's semiconductor packaging equipment market or the worst performance since 2015

Gathering micro-network news, according to semiconductor semiconductor equipment supplier BE Semiconductor Industries NV (abbreviation: Besi) mentioned in the financial report, VLSI Research announced in early April based on a number of semiconductor manufacturers to predict the market growth rate of semiconductor packaging equipment in 2018 The estimate is revised down from the 18.1% estimated in January to 12.5%; if it is met, it will be the worst performance since 2015 (declined by 17.5%), worse than the 13.5% in 2016 and 21.4% growth in 2017.

According to VLSI statistics, in 2017, the semiconductor packaging equipment market sales reached US$4.4 billion, a record high.

Besi Chief Executive Richard W. Blickman announced on April 26th through a financial press release that the amount of orders in the first quarter of 2018 increased by 37.8% quarterly to 205.8 million euros, mainly due to the benefits of IDM and Asia. The contractor moves in response to the increase in production of smartphones.

Besi's first quarter of 2018 (as of March 31, 2018): Revenue increased 40.5% year-on-year (1.1% quarterly) to 154.9 million euros, gross margin rose 0.8 percentage points year-on-year (0.2% quarterly increase) to 56.5%, net profit increased by 52.7% to 37.1 million euros, diluted earnings per share increased 51.7% (quarterly decrease of 16.5%) to 0.91 euros.

Besi estimates that the second quarter revenue will increase by 10-15% in the quarter and the gross profit margin is estimated to be between 55-57%. Using the median estimate, the revenue estimate in the first half of 2018 will be the same as in the same period in 2017. Growth of 17%.

ASM International NV, a supplier of wafer manufacturing equipment, declined due to the drop in gross margin in the first quarter of 2018. ASM International fell 0.12% to close at 50.64 on April 26, the lowest since September 8, 2017 (Thomson Reuters).