United Microelectronics Corporation (NEW)

Welcome everyone to UMC's 2024 third quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background noise. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please follow the instructions given at the time if you would like to ask the question. For your information, this conference call is now being broadcast live over the internet. Webcast replay will be available within two hours after the conference is finished. please visit our website, www.umc.com, under the Investor Relations Investors Event section. And now I would like to introduce Mr. Michael Lin, Head of Investor Relations at UMC. Mr. Lin, please begin.

Thank you and welcome to UMC's conference call for the third quarter of 2024. I'm joined by Mr. Jason Wang, President of UMC. and Mr. Chi-Dong Liu, the CFO of UMC. In a moment, we will hear our CFO present the third quarter financial results, followed by our President's key message to address UMC's focus and fourth quarter 2024 guidance. Once our President and CFO complete their remarks, there will be a Q&A section. UMC's quarterly financial reports are available at our website. www.umc.com under the Investors Financials section. During this conference, we may make forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations and beliefs. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the risk that may be beyond the company's control. For a more detailed description of this risk and uncertainties, please refer to our recent and subsequent filings with the SEC and the ROC security authorities. During this conference, you may view our financial presentation material, which is being broadcast live through the internet. Now, I would like to introduce UMC CFO, Mr. Chi-Tung Liu, to discuss UMC's third quarter 2024 financial results.

Thank you, Michael. I'd like to go through the 3Q24 investor conference presentation material, which can be downloaded or viewed in real time from our website. Starting on page four, the third quarter of 2024, consolidated revenue was $50.5 billion NT, with gross margins at 33.8%. the net income attributable to the stockholders of the parent was 14.5 billion NT, and earnings per ordinary share were 1.16 NT dollars. For the capacity utilization rate in the third quarter was 71 percent, which is slightly up from 58 percent in the previous quarter. On page five, the sequential comparison Operating revenue grew 6.5% to $60.5 billion NT. Gross margin was 33.8% compared to 35.2% in the previous quarter. Our net income in the third quarter was 14.44 billion NT. This is compared to the 13.77 billion NT dollar numbers in the previous quarter. And for EPS, it's 1.16 NT per share. On page 6, for the first three quarters of 2024, cumulative revenue grew 2.6% to 171.9 billion NT. Gross margin rate was 33.3%. The decline of 4.4% over 2.5 percentage point was mainly due to the increased depreciation happened in 2024. For the net income for the first three quarters reached $38.64 billion NT. For the net income attributable to the shareholder of the parent was $38.71, which is equivalent to $3.12 NT per share in EPS. On page seven is our balance sheet. Our cash dividend payout still remain above $100 billion NT. The number is $103.4 billion NT at the end of third quarter. The total equity for the company now reached $368.5 billion NT at the end of third quarter 2024. For Q3 2024, on page 8, the ASP numbers remain resilient, flattish. And this is compared to the previous quarter. We didn't see much change for our blended ASP. On page 9, for revenue breakdown, Asia now represents 65% of our total revenue, and Europe declined by 2 percentage points from 7% to 5%. On page 10, IDM rebound from 13 percent in the previous quarter now to 15 percent in the third quarter of 24. In terms of segment breakdown, communication also increased to 42 percent from 39 percent in the previous quarter, and the computer declined by 2 percent from 15 percent to 13 percent. On page 12, our 22, 28 nanometer revenue in both absolute dollar amount and also percentage reach a record high of 35% in the third quarter of 24. And 40 nanometer stay around 13% in the third quarter. For our capacity table on page 13, 12A in Tainan continued to increase leading-edge capacity, and that will bring up the full-year capacity increase for UMC to above 7 percent. And the last page, on page 14, we revised, update our annual CAPES budget from previously $3.3 billion to now $3 billion. This is just to reflect the update schedule, mainly for our Singapore capacity rent. So the above is a summary of UMC results for 3Q 2024. More details are available in the report, which has been posted on our website. I will now turn the call over to President of UMC, Mr. Jason Wong. Jason Wong Thank you, Qigong.