[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] DB HiTek has decided to pay all employees a performance bonus of 500%, the largest scale since its founding. This decision comes as the semiconductor boom is expected to push last year's annual sales to exceed 1 trillion won for the first time, leading the company to give employees higher performance bonuses than before.
According to business circles on the 23rd, DB HiTek recently announced that it will pay a uniform performance bonus to all employees at the level of 500% of the basic salary (1/15 of the contracted annual salary). This is the largest scale since the company's establishment. Previously, DB HiTek paid performance bonuses at varying rates based on individual performance relative to the contracted annual salary, and additionally provided performance bonuses (PI) based on the basic salary. The performance bonuses are scheduled to be paid within this week.
The reason DB HiTek decided to pay the largest-ever performance bonus this time is interpreted as having achieved the first-ever annual sales record of 1 trillion won. According to financial information provider FnGuide, DB HiTek's 2021 consolidated annual performance consensus (average forecast) is sales of 1.1823 trillion won and operating profit of 369.2 billion won.
DB HiTek experienced rapid growth last year as the foundry industry entered a great boom. Due to the global semiconductor supply shortage intensifying, demand for key products such as power management integrated circuits (PMIC) for home appliances and microcontroller units for vehicles surged. DB HiTek, a foundry company based on 8-inch wafers which are in short supply, has grown by receiving orders from clients for power semiconductors (PMIC), camera image sensors (CIS), sensors, and producing them.
Recently, the company announced that it will start manufacturing RF (radio frequency) chips based on 130 nanometer (nm; 1 nm = one billionth of a meter) and 110 nm technology. The newly developed process features the use of SOI wafers with a three-layer structure of silicon-insulator-silicon and HRD wafers capable of producing high-resistance products.
The market expects DB HiTek's growth to continue this year as semiconductor demand significantly exceeds supply. Choi Doyeon, a researcher at Shinhan Financial Investment, analyzed, "DB HiTek has already secured all orders for production volume this year and is expected to expand capacity. Due to price increases and capacity expansion effects, sales this year are forecasted at 1.4743 trillion won and operating profit at 593.6 billion won."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
