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ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES Inc. (IMOS)

Q4 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 16, 2021

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the ChipMOS' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dr. G.S. Shen of ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES Strategy and Investor Relations team to introduce the management of the company in conference. Dr. Chen, you may begin.

G.S. Shen

Management

Thank you, operator. Welcome everyone to ChipMOS' fourth quarter and full year 2020 results conference call. Joining us today from the company are Mr. S.J. Cheng, Chairman and President; and Ms. Silvia Su, Vice President of Finance and Accounting Management Center. We are also joined on the call today by Mr. Jesse Huang, Spokesperson and Senior Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations. SJ will chair the meeting and review business highlights and provide color on the operating environment. After Silvia's review of the company's key financial results, SJ will provide our current business outlook. All company executives will then participate in an open Q&A session. Please note, we have posted a presentation on the MOPS and the ChipMOS' website www.chipmos.com to accompany today's conference call. Before we begin the prepared comments, we advise you to review our forward-looking statements disclaimer, which is noted as the Safe Harbor Notice on the second page of today's presentation. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded and a replay will be made available later today on the Company's website. At this time, I'd like to now turn the call over to our company's Chairman and President, Mr. S.J. Cheng. Please go ahead, sir.

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

Yes, thank you, GS. We appreciate everyone joining our call today. We are pleased with our strong results for the full year 2020. We achieved record revenue growth through the year. The year was unique and full of challenges for everyone. Our team did an excellent job supporting customers through the global pandemic, trade tensions and widespread supply chain tightness. We are very pleased to report: revenue for the full year 2020 grew 13.1% over the full year 2019. We ended the year with a new quarterly record high revenue level in Q4 2020. Gross margin expanded 260 basis points for the full year to 21.9% compared to the full year 2019. For Q4, gross margin was up 510 basis points compared to Q3 2020. Gross margin benefitted from higher utilization levels and price increases for DDIC test and memory assembly. Our Q4 assembly utilization level increased significantly to 97%, with an uptick in Testing and Assembly programs. Capacity remains tightened. New added assembly capacity we added was reserved in support of customer programs in advance. Our high-end DDIC test platforms, including new capacity we added in Q4 were also fully utilized in support of strong TDDI demand. The average utilization level was up to 85%. Regarding our manufacturing business, assembly represented more than 26% of Q4 revenue. Testing represented around 20% of Q4 revenue and wafer bumping represented around 23.5% of Q4 revenue. On a product segment basis, our DDIC, including COG and COF, was around 30% of Q4 revenue and gold bumping represented around 19.5% Q4 revenue. Revenue from DRAM and SRAM represented 18.5% of Q4 revenue and our flash segment represented 23.4% of Q4 revenue. The mixed-signal segment represented around 8.5% of Q4 revenue. In terms of adding color on our two major businesses, our memory product…

Silvia Su

President

Thank you SJ. All dollar amounts cited in our presentation are in NT dollars. The following numbers are based on the exchange rates of NT$28.08 against US$1.00 as of December 31, 2020. All the figures were prepared in accordance with Taiwan-International Financial Reporting Standards. Page 12, consolidated operating results summary. For the fourth quarter of 2020, total revenue was NT$6,310 million. Net profit attributable to the company was NT$687 million in Q4. Net earnings for the fourth quarter of 2020 were NT$0.94 per basic common share or US$0.67 per basic ADS. EBITDA for Q4 was NT$2,219 million. EBITDA was calculated by adding depreciation and amortization together with operating profit. Return on equity of Q4 was 13.4%. Page13, consolidated statements of comprehensive income. Compared to 3Q20, total 4Q20 revenue increased 11.0% compared to 3Q20. 4Q20 gross profit was NT$1,541 million, with gross margin at 24.4% compared to 19.3% in Q3. This represents an increase of 5.1ppts. Our operating expenses in Q4 were NT$413 million, or 6.5% of total revenue, which is about a 4.7% improvement compared to Q3. Operating profit for Q4 was NT$1,160 million, with Q4 operating margin at 18.4%, which is about a 5.8ppts improvement compared to Q3. Net non-operating expenses in Q4 were NT$278 million. The difference between Q4 and Q3 is mainly due to the increase of the share of loss of associates accounted for using equity method of NT$49 million and the increase of foreign exchange loss of NT$47 million. Profit attributable to the company in Q4 expanded 62.1% compared to Q3. The difference between Q4 and Q3 is mainly due to the increase of the gross profit of NT$446 million and partially offset by the increase net non-operating expense of NT$99 million and the income tax expense of NT$80 million. Basic weighted average outstanding shares…

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

Thank you, Silvia. As we look forward in 2021, we expect positive trends in both memory and DDIC products will continue. Semiconductor demand has been increasing with the big hurdle being supply constraints. We expect to benefit from the increasing demand and customer restocking. In the meantime, the strong demand with capacity constraints supports higher prices. We are strategically adding capacity with customers locking-up the capacity. In memory, we increased the assembly price to reflect the higher cost of materials and the tightened capacity situation. We are benefiting from momentum in DRAM with customers restocking. We expect Flash businesses, including NOR and NAND will continue to grow as we move through 2021. New adding assembly capacity, are all reserved in advance for support to customer's demand. In DDIC, to reflect the whole supply chain tightness, around 5%, 10% of each process step price increase should settle down in Q1. We also expect to gain more allocation share, with COF utilization level for TV on track for further improvement. We also expect to benefit from continued strong demand levels in smartphone for TDDI. New capacity, including what we added in Q4, are also all reversed in advance by take or pay contracts to meet the strong TDDI demand. Finally, we are continuously driving higher profit through increased AI and automation to further reduce operating costs. Reflecting our business strength and positive outlook, our Board approved another dividend. Pending shareholder approval at our May AGM, we will distribute NT$2.2 per common share. Operator, that concludes our formal remarks, we can now take questions.

Question-and

Management

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line from Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Chairman, Silvia and everybody, there are some questions from our side. The first one is regarding to the outlook for memory and driver IC, which will perform better in 2021. Would you please talk about the outlook for Q1 2021, such as revenue and gross margin since the base for Q4 2020 has already been high?

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

Jerry, to answer your question, there were only 28 work days in February and we spent one day for annual facility maintenance. So, overall the total work days in Q1 were significantly less than Q4 last year. Based on our current business momentum for the first half of this year and the reported revenue for January and February, we are confident that the Q1 revenue will be flattish to Q4. And also the gross margin.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Do you mean the gross margin will be close to the Q4?

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

Yes, we think it should be close to Q4 '20. However, overtime costs for the Chinese New Year Holiday were normally higher. So, there will be some impact.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Okay. Besides, could you guide the CapEx and depreciation of this year?

Silvia Su

President

Jerry, let me answer your question. I assume what you mean “this year” is for 2021.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Yes.

Silvia Su

President

The CapEx for 2020 is around NT$ 4,100 million. It accounted below 20% of annual revenue. As for this year, as Chairman just mentioned, we are optimistic for the industry and business in 2021. So, our CapEx should be around 20% to 25% of annual revenue for 2021 and the amount will be higher than last year. For depreciation, the Q4 2020 amount was about NT$ 1,060 million. Q1 2021 should be between NT$1,100 million to NT$1,200 million. In the following quarters for Q2, Q3, Q4, it will be increased 3% to 4 % quarterly. This is how we roughly look at the depreciation in 2021.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

So, it will be around NT$1,100 million to NT$1,200 million for Q1? And then increasing 3% to 4 % quarterly?

Silvia Su

President

Yes.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Got it. We just talked about the guidance for CapEx will be 20% to 25% of annual revenue. We would like to ask Chairman to give a guidance for the revenue 2021.

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

Jerry, let me answer you this way. Normally, ChipMOS would not provide the financial guidance. Based on the revenue outlook for the first half and contracts we have signed with customers, we are very optimistic for 2021. The annual revenue can possibly grow with double digits. We are also targeting for gross margin to be better than last year. Regarding to the profit, it should also be better than last year, based on the targeted growth of revenue and maintaining the gross margin, and also the material cost could be reflecting to customer. So, if that scenario happens, the dividend would also be better than last year.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Okay, got it. The last question is about non-operating portion from my reading the financial report. I suppose the major loss was from Unimos by using equity method. If it looks like the loss is getting smaller year-on-year. Could you please provide current status of Unimos? When could we expect it can become profitable?

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

Let me answer your question. The previous major shareholder was Unigroup, and it transferred to YMTC two years ago. So, the major shareholder is YMTC and Unigroup is no longer holding any shares. This is first point. Secondly, YMTC would like to better plan for this backend operation, so it recognized one-time depreciation for a non-flash related product line. So, this year could be turned profitable since the demand for whole backend industry is still very tight. For the long term, we will continue to survey suitable investors to proceed in the most beneficial way to shareholders and ChipMOS in the right time. It will take some time.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Okay, thank you, Chairman. There are two more questions. First, Chairman just mentioned a lot about TDDI, could you please talk about OLED status?

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

The growth for OLED will be significant this year since the OLED panel maker in China and also our customers, including China and Taiwan all grow in this segment. So, the ratio from this portion will grow.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Okay, got it. The second question, I would like to ask Silvia about the CapEx. Does the CapEx guidance include any factory building or land or just all for capacity expansion in equipment?

Silvia Su

President

The mentioned CapEx would be 20% to 25% of annual revenue, which includes some building and land expansion.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

So, will it be by reconstruction or new building?

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

The expansion will be done by reconstruction. Our construction rate is still within the regulation of the Science Industrial Park, which allows us to do reconstruction to expand the floor space. And we also removed some older machines to optimize the process flow, and introduce automation and AI to improve the production efficiency in order to increase the capacity.

Jerry Su

Analyst · Jerry Su from Credit Suisse. You may begin

Okay, understood. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I am not showing any further questions in the queue. I would like to turn the call back over to GS.

G.S. Shen

Management

Thank you, I will orally read some questions from foreign institutional investors, who could not attend this Mandarin call. The question is asking about the company, expect it will be cash flow positive for the year 2021?

Jesse Huang

Analyst

We were free cash flow positive for the full year 2020 after a deficit in 2019. We are cautiously optimistic and confident about 2021. We are targeting to achieve positive free cash flow again in 2021 depending on our final CapEx budget and dividends paid to shareholders.

G.S. Shen

Management

That concludes our question-and-answer session. Thank you for participating. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. S.J. Cheng for any closing comments.

S.J. Cheng

Chairman

Thank you everyone for joining our conference call. Please e-mail our IR Team if you have any more questions. We appreciate your support. Goodbye.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.