Gelonghui, May 30丨UMC.US (UMC.US) announced the financial report for the first quarter of 2024. According to financial reports, consolidated revenue for the first quarter of 2024 was NT$54.63 billion, down 0.6% from the previous month and up 0.8% from the previous year. The gross profit for the first quarter of 2024 was NT$16.9 billion, and the consolidated gross margin was 30.9%. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company for the first quarter was NT$10.46 billion, and earnings per share were NT$0.84. The capacity utilization rate is 65%, and the 22/28 nm process accounts for 33% of revenue.
In terms of revenue, by region, the Asia Pacific region's contribution rate increased to 63%, and sales in North America increased to 25% of total sales. The European business declined to 8%, and Japan's contribution remained at 4%; according to the revenue classification of process nodes, the revenue contribution of the 22/28 nm process fell to 33% of wafer revenue, while the contribution of the 40 nm process remained at 14% of sales.
UMC Co-President Jason Wang said, “In the first quarter, due to a recovery in the computer sector, our wafer shipments increased 4.5% month-on-month. Despite a slight drop in utilization to 65%, we were able to maintain a relatively healthy gross margin due to ongoing cost control and efforts to improve operational efficiency. The contribution of our featured business increased to 57% of total revenue, driven by demand for power management ICs, RFSOI chips, and silicon intermediates for AI servers. During this quarter, our team continued to make good progress on key product line projects, including customer-specific solutions and new technology platforms serving high-growth segments of the 5G, AIoT, and automotive markets. This includes embedded high voltage, embedded non-volatile memory, RFSOI, and 3DIC solutions. To provide stable and predictable dividends to our shareholders, the board of directors of UMC recently approved a cash distribution of approximately NT$3.00 per share, which will be higher than last year's dividend ratio. This requires shareholders' approval at the May Annual General Meeting of Shareholders.”
Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2024, on a month-on-month basis, the company expects wafer shipments to grow by a low single-digit percentage, the average sales price (ASP) in US dollars will remain stable, gross margin will be around 30%, capacity utilization is expected to be in the middle range of 60%, and capital expenditure (CAPEX) in 2024 is 3.3 billion US dollars.