Unisem Raises 3rd Quarter Earnings Estimates

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Hana Financial Investment raised its earnings forecast for Unisem for the third quarter of this year on the 26th.

Kim Kyungmin, a researcher at Hana Financial Investment, explained, "We estimate that semiconductor equipment supplier Unisem will achieve sales of 62.5 billion KRW and operating profit of 10.5 billion KRW in the third quarter of this year," adding, "The previous estimates were sales of 58.6 billion KRW and operating profit of 9.8 billion KRW."

He continued, "The reason why the third-quarter performance is stronger than previously expected is that domestic customers continued their non-memory foundry investments in the third quarter following the second quarter," and added, "It is also because Unisem's market share has significantly increased due to the expanded effect of process replacement."

Furthermore, he emphasized, "Display equipment for overseas customers, which accounted for a relatively small portion of sales in the first half of this year, contributed to third-quarter sales."

Researcher Kim analyzed, "Unisem is also expected to grow its performance next year," and presented a sales forecast of 330.4 billion KRW.

He explained, "The proportion of semiconductor equipment sales for non-memory at Unisem has risen to the low to mid-teens percentage-wise," and added, "There is high visibility that major customers will continue non-memory facility investments next year."

He added, "We expect that NAND flash facility investments by SK Hynix and Kioxia, which were relatively small this year, will expand next year," and said, "Along with movements of front-end industry customers, the application of Unisem's scrubbers in individual processes is also expected to increase."