United Microelectronics Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
January 21, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Q4 2024 results: Consolidated revenue was TWD 50.4 billion with a 30.4% gross margin, net income of TWD 8.49 billion and EPS of TWD 0.68.
  • Full-year 2024 revenue rose 4.4% year-over-year to TWD 232.3 billion, gross margin was ~32.6%, and net income reached TWD 25.2 billion.
  • The quarter included a non-operating loss of RMB 1.4 billion due to mark-to-market losses on the investment portfolio.
  • 22 nm/28 nm momentum: These specialty platforms now account for about 34% of revenue, with 22 nm revenue up 15% in 2024 and expected to contribute more in 2025.
  • Q1 2025 guidance calls for flat wafer shipments, ASP down mid-single digits, gross margin above 25%, and capacity utilization around 70%.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
United Microelectronics Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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Jason Wang
President at UMC

Welcome, everyone, to UMC's 2024 Question and Answer session. Please ignore background noise. After the presentation, follow the instructions given at the time if you would like to ask the question. For your information, this conference is live over the Internet. Webcast replay will be available within an hour. This call is now being broadcast after the conference is finished. Please visit our website, www.umc.com, under the Investor Relations, Investors, Events section. And now, I would like to introduce Mr. Michael Lin, Head of Investor Relations at UMC. Mr. Lin, please begin.

Michael Lin
Head of Investor Relations at UMC

Thank you, and welcome to UMC's conference call for the fourth quarter of 2024. I'm joined by Mr. Jason Wang, President of UMC, and Mr. Chi-Tung Liu, the CFO of UMC. In a moment, we will hear our CFO present the fourth quarter financial results, followed by our President's key message to address UMC's focus and first quarter 2025 guidance. Once our President and CFO complete their remarks, there will be a Q&A session. UMC's quarterly financial reports are available at our website, www.umc.com, under the Investor's Financial 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 risks that may be beyond the company's control.

Michael Lin
Head of Investor Relations at UMC

For a more detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the subsequent filings with the SEC, various regulatory authorities, and the ROC securities 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's CFO, Mr. Chitung Liu, to discuss UMC's fourth quarter 2024 financial results.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

Thank you, Michael. I'd like to go through the 4Q24 Investor Conference presentation material, which can be downloaded or viewed in real time from our website. Starting on page four, the fourth quarter of 2024 consolidated revenue was TWD 60.4 billion, with gross margin at 30.4%. Net income attributable to the stockholder of the parent was TWD 8.5 billion, and earnings per ordinary share were 0.68 TWD. Utilization rate in the Q4 was 70%, slightly down from the previous quarter of 71%. On the quarterly income statement, operating revenue was basically flat, around TWD 60.4 billion, and the gross margin rate maintained at 30.4%, or TWD 18.3 billion. Due to mark-to-market loss of the investment portfolio for both UMC and UMC Capital, we registered a TWD 1.4 billion loss of non-operating income in Q4 2024.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

The result is the net income attributable to the shareholder of the parent reached TWD 8.49 billion, or $0.68 EPS per share. For the cumulative whole year 2024 performance, on a year-over-year comparison, revenue increased 4.4% YOY to TWD 232.3 billion. Gross margin rate was around 32.6%, or TWD 75.6 billion. Operating expenses are under control, around 10.9%, similar to the 10.7% in 2023. The net income for 2024 was TWD 27.2 billion, or TWD 47.38 per share. EPS per ADS is $0.58. On the balance sheet, our cash on hand is over TWD 100 billion, and total equity for the company at the end of 2024 reached TWD 378 billion. ASP last quarter at Q4 was flat quarter-over-quarter. Let's go down to page 9 for revenue breakdown.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

For Q4 2024, the Asia sales represent about 61%, which declined 4 percentage points from the previous quarter, when Europe increased from 5% to 11% in Q4 2024. For the whole year, the Asia part of the revenue increased from 57% in 2023 to 63% in 2024. Europe declined about 3% to 8 percentage points from 11% in the previous year, when North America didn't really change that much, from 27% to 25%. For quarterly, IDM revenue remained flat-ish, from 15% to 16%. For the full year, it declined from 22% in 2023 to 16% in 2024. In terms of application breakdown, we see the consumer segment declined about 2% to 29%, and communication also declined about 3% to 39%. And others, including automotive and industrial, in this single quarter, due to customers' order modulation and wafer-to-wafer shipment difference, increased from 14% to 19%.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

On page 14, our full-year application breakdown, communication is around 42%, and consumer is about 28%. On page 15, our technology breakdown, our 22 and 28-nanometer shipment continued to increase, and right now represents about 34% of the total revenue. 40-nanometer also sees some increase from 13% in the previous quarter to 16% in this quarter. For the whole year, 28-22 represents about 34% of our total revenue, when 40-nanometer remained constant around 14%. Capacity continued to increase, mainly from our Fab 12A P6 operation, and it will somehow decline a little bit because of the Chinese New Year's holiday schedule and also annual maintenance schedule in Q1 of 2025. CapEx budget for 2025 currently stands around $1.8 billion, and the actual payback number for 2024 was a bit over $2.8 billion. The above is a summary of UMC results for Q4 2024.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

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 Wang.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Thank you, Chitung. Good evening, everyone. Here, I would like to share UMC's fourth quarter results. Our fourth quarter results met guidance, with wafer shipment and utilization slightly exceeding expectations. For full year 2024, revenue grew 4.4% year-on-year, reflecting a steady improvement in demand across communication, consumer, and computer segments. Our 22-28-nanometer portfolio remained the largest contributor, with the revenue increasing 15% in 2024. Notably, customers are showing strong interest in migrating to our 22-nanometer specialty platform for next-generation networking and display driver applications and power-saving and performance advantage both, which offers significant 28-nanometer solutions. Tape-outs for 22-nanometer products are accelerating, and we expect to see higher revenue contributions from 2025 onwards. Looking into 2025, the semiconductor market is poised for another year of growth. Strong demand for AI servers, as well as driven by increasing semiconductor content in smartphones, PCs, and other electronic devices.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

To capture opportunities in the fast-moving markets, UMC continues to invest in technology innovation, developing industry-leading specialty solutions to ride the next wave of system upgrades and stay ahead of the competition. Building on our technology foundation, UMC is also actively expanding our advanced packaging offering to help unleash the potential of AI in the coming years. In conjunction with technology development, our capacity expansion projects are progressing as planned. Our new Singapore Phase 3 Fab will enhance customer supply chain resilience, while the 12-nanometer collaboration with our U.S. partner will offer customer migration paths beyond 22 nanometers. Now, let's move on to first quarter 2025 guidance. Our wafer shipments will remain flat. ASP in U.S. dollars will decrease by a single-digit percentage. Gross margin will be higher than 25% with January 21st earthquake impact. Capacity utilization rate will be approximately 70%.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Our 2025 cash-based CapEx will be budgeted at $1.8 billion. That concludes my comments. Thank you all for your attention. Now, we are ready for questions.

Operator

Yes, thank you, President Wang, and ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question-and-answer session. If you have a question for any of today's speakers, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad, and you will enter the queue. After you are announced, please ask your question. If you find that your question has been answered before it is your turn to speak, please press Star 2 to cancel the question. Now, please press Star 1 on your keypad if you would like to ask the question. Thank you, and our first question will be coming from Sunny Lin, UBS. Go ahead, please.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

Good afternoon, Jason and Chitung. Thank you for taking my questions. So my first question is on gross margin. And so on these above 25% gross margin guidance for Q1, could you help us understand what are some of the major factors? Because if we look at the Q1 2024, your broader ASP was also down by about a single digit, but you were able to keep up your gross margin. And so I wonder what's the meaningful decline this year. And then for Q1, maybe the second part for gross margin is how should we think about the full year? Will this above 25%, should we consider that as a fair assumption for full year, or would you quarters? Maybe let me stop here, and I have a few follow-ups. Do you expect a recovery in coming few?

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

Thank you. First of all, the earthquake does have impact on our Q1. Earlier this morning, maybe about low single digit. However, a large part of the loss will be compensated through insurance in the later stage. Secondly, the Q1 margin is impacted by both ASP decline, which is one-off, and also the increased depreciation expenses. So we don't expect anything structural in terms of profitability change. The one-off pricing adjustment and depreciation plus the earthquake this morning lead to this higher than 25% gross margin guidance. We will continue to deploy aggressive cost management to offset the headwind costs, focusing on multi-sourcing strategy, streamlining process flow, supply chain pricing management, and power reduction measures on facility and tools. Of course, we will continue to invest for the future, including the automation transformation.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

As for the rest of the year, we will give the guidance on a quarterly basis.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

Got it. Thank you very much, Chitung. So if I could follow up on the depreciation increase, and so what's your current guidance for the growth for depreciation for 2025, and how much depreciation will increase going to Q1? Should we assume most of the depreciation increase to happen in first half because you have completed your 28-nanometer expansion in Taiwan, and therefore the depreciation increase will start to moderate going to second half?

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

The depreciation increase in 2024, as we guided, was low 20%. As a matter of fact, it's very close to 20%. As for 2025, the guidance will be high 20% for the whole year. And we don't really have a full quarterly breakdown yet for the depreciation expenses because it varies according to the tool installation, etc. But the peak of the depreciation, we will see until maybe 2027 to see peak off. So it's still another year or two to go in terms of depreciation increase.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

Got it. Thank you very much. My second question is on your cash dividend. So how should we think about your policy? Obviously, I think last year business was through the trough, but on the other hand, your cash flow should start to improve substantially given a lower CapEx. I understand the cash dividend will still need to go through the approval from the board, but any color from your strategy will be very helpful.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

Yeah, we understand UMC needs to maintain a somewhat better than average dividend yield in order to attract our investors, and we will strike a delicate balance between business growth and shareholder return. Most importantly, we want to ensure shareholders receive a stable and consistent cash dividend.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

Last three years, you paid $3 or above cash dividend. When you mentioned sustainable, should we consider that from an absolute amount point of view?

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

It's both. It's a blended, so you should blend the absolute dollar concept along with the dividend yield and also the payout ratio.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

Got it. No problem. My last question is for Jason. And so I want to get your view on the overall semi cycle, more specifically into 2025. About UMC's adjusted foundry market growth, and how do you think for this year? Are you seeing any green shoots from consumer restocking or supply chain preview? Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Sure, of course. Yeah. For the semi outlook, I mean, it's our view that the semiconductor industry is expecting to see a 10% growth in 2025, mainly driven by the high demand of AI servers, as well as some moderate growth in consumer electronics and increase of semiconductor content from the AI smartphone and AI PC notebook replacement. So the dominance of growth still remains to be an AI server area. For the foundry, we expect the 2025 foundry market will grow in mid- to high-teens %. Again, that includes the AI momentum. For the UMC addressable market, we have observed that inventory for consumer electronics expects to grow moderately as long as it has been digested to a healthy level, and the demand of this while we see the increase in semiconductor content as well.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

These factors will be the main driver for the overall low single-digit growth in the mature market, so I think UMC's addressable will project at low single-digit growth for 2025, and for UMC, it's our goal that we will outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

Thank you, Jason. Thank you for customers' help side to see some upside from the supply chain preview ahead of the potential tariffs in first half of this year, and provide this guidance of low single-digit growth for 2025. Have you considered some upside from that regard?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Can you repeat that again? I kind of blanked out at the beginning. Sorry.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

No problem. Sorry about that, so just one quick follow-up, so when you mentioned this low single-digit growth for your adjusted market for 2025, I wonder, have you considered some upside from the potential supply chain pull-in ahead of tariffs? Because in recent few months, we have started to hear from fabless indicating that some rush orders are coming through from China ahead of the tariff.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Yes, I got it. Okay. Well, for the Q1 guidance that we just provided, it is somewhat better than our preview. We guide the shipment will be the traditional seasonality in flat. And the short-term visibility still remains limited, partly because of these non-fundamental factors plus the US tariff. We certainly hope that Q2 will grow sequentially. And the current projection is not 100% including those, but because of the lack of visibility, unless the Q2 can be sustainable, otherwise, we still project that will be a low single digit. In other words, that low single digit is not including the tariff. But we did see better than the traditional seasonality Q1 projection. Yeah.

Sunny Lin
Sunny Lin
Analyst at UBS

Got it. Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Next one, Gokul Hariharan, J.P. Morgan. Go ahead, please.

Gokul Hariharan
Gokul Hariharan
Analyst at JPMorgan

Yeah, hi. Good evening and thanks for taking my question. First question on pricing, Jason. What are we assuming? Are we basically taking a one-time price reduction across the spectrum, about 5% or something like that? Also, I wanted to understand the use that you can hold off on any further price declines through the course of the new year, given there seems to be both price pressure from your larger competitor in Taiwan as well as price pressure from a lot of the new capacity on 28-nanometer in China as well?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Of course. I mean, we are experiencing that for the past years. And again, our pricing strategy remains unchanged. And however, we do respect to follow the market price like we said in the past. At the beginning of the year, we always plan there will be a one-off pricing adjustment. And the pricing outlook will resemble a similar pattern like 2024, which will be about a flat-ish year after the one-off adjustment. And to mitigate the market pressure, the pricing pressure, we'll continue to strengthen our product portfolio. And we do expect 22- and 28-nanometer revenue contribution will continue to increase and will represent high 30% range for us. And the growing payback momentum in 2022 can mitigate the potential 28-nm competitions. It's our view that in 2025, we'll continue working on differentiating from the industry peers in the mature foundry market. We know the competition's there.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Geopolitically, the outlook taking place in the semiconductor industry is, again, unprecedented than we have experienced in the last year in 2024 as well. Some of the initiatives are already happening, and that to against the supply chain resilience, because of the oversupply situation in the industry. Now, for UMC, we are one of the few foundry suppliers who can support global fab operations. We have envisioned a need for diversified manufacturing strategy many years ago, while at the same time, we believe the fundamental competitiveness is to strengthen our technology differentiation. So in conclusion, our pricing strategy is unchanged compared to the previous year, and we are gaining shares in our addressable market. And UMC's diversified manufacturing footprint and competitive technology offering will still set us apart from our peers. That's our view.

Gokul Hariharan
Gokul Hariharan
Analyst at JPMorgan

Got it. Thanks, Jason. So just one more question, pricing. I remember that a lot of LTA contracts were negotiated back in 2021, came into force in 2022. Many of them were three-to-four-year kind of contracts. So I presume a lot of them are coming up for renewal this year and probably next year. How does that influence pricing? I'm sure clients are going to be asking for a lower price given the current situation compared to back in 2021, 2022. So I just wanted to understand, not just for this year, but going forward a couple of years, do we think that the price curve is generally going to be downward sloping given this pressure?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

I think pricing is one of them. The LTA, I mean, the concept of LTA is really more of the mutual commitment from both customer and UMC that we have to commit and honor our agreement in improving capacity and while our partners and customers remain committed, engaging with UMC on an ongoing basis and for the future growth. So fundamentally, this has never changed. Now, the market dynamic does put in some pressure on those LTA. So like I said, we are respecting the market price dynamics, and we're closely working with our customers to navigate through this process in order for them to protect and continue to be competitive in their marketplace. So there is ongoing discussion with our LTA owners and with the goal that we will continue working together going forward and help them to be competitive in the marketplace. Gokul? Gokul.

Operator

Gokul, do you mute yourself?

Gokul Hariharan
Gokul Hariharan
Analyst at JPMorgan

Yeah. Hi. Sorry. Sorry about that. So maybe one last question. Could you talk a little bit about the capacity ramp for the Singapore Fab? Are you taking a little bit of a slower course of action? How much capacity do you expect to come online for the Singapore Fab this year and potentially next year? And this CapEx kind of moderation down to $1.8 billion from $3 billion, is that where we should expect it over the next couple of years, or is it just a one-year thing?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Sure. I mean, for the capacity expansion in 2025, our Singapore, the Q3 production went is still on track, and for the January '26 and start from January '26, so that milestone remains unchanged. However, the volume has somewhat adjusted, and so, following, given the current market dynamics, we are seeing that ramp profile. But the timing did not change, and the customer alignment, we are adjusting. The 2024 CapEx mainly spending in the P3 building facility, and that is the major portion which is already complete and deployed. So for the CapEx projection going forward, we do not expect there will be any uptick from the current level.

Gokul Hariharan
Gokul Hariharan
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. Understood, and lastly, gross margin, given Chitung's guidance on depreciation, kind of high 20s kind of growth, revenue growth you're expecting looks like mid-single digit. Is it fair to expect that gross margin stays in this mid-20s level through this year? Is that a fair kind of characterization of margins?

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

It's difficult to guide the full year, especially on quarterly patterns for the gross margin right now. I think all we can say is we try very hard, at least from an EBITDA margin point of view, to have an intact structure EBITDA margin. Of course, the depreciation numbers will go up continuously over the next two years. But our goal is really to have an intact structure profitability. And hopefully, we will see more 22-nanometer shipment along with recovering capacity utilization rate to offset the increased cost side of the equation.

Gokul Hariharan
Gokul Hariharan
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next one, Brad Lin, Bank of America.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Beyond AI application, do you also foresee non-AI application adopting this kind of the, well, so-called CoWoS technologies as well? Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Sure. For the second, we have a product pipeline that's coming into this, but there is a cadence between that. So for the application being associated with the, we can continue to see quite a bit of momentum on that. And so I can probably give you a bit of a detail on that front is our customer has seen increased requirements point of view, particularly in the AI application and for the communication bandwidth and energy efficiency. So we foresee there will be increased needs of integrated memory, logic, and even sensor chiplet for the better AI performance. So we are broadening our packaging technology offering beyond this interposer, the 2.5D interposer, which will allow us to develop a new system architect with a model. No expansion on that. But meanwhile, we extend.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

I mean, that's where we stand on the current interposer, which is part of expanding our broadened out advanced packaging offering for the future engagement.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Thank you very much. That's pretty clear. It sounds like despite mention, we should see more value addition and high utilization rate for this limited business line. Am I?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

We do expect there will be a pipeline coming in.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Correct?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

With numerous different products and applications.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

My second question would be on the geopolitical impacts on the customer orders. Have you observed any significant share gains from the overseas clients due to the rising geopolitical dynamics? When does the management expect this to drive the revenue growth meaningfully? And also, conversely, do you anticipate any downside risk from so-called China-for-China trend here? Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Any downside. And in fact, we see, I mean, we don't see multiple different directions. There is product moving into certain regions, and some product is moving out certain regions. So there are multiple dynamics and directions on those adjustments on our customer sourcing strategy. And with UMC's diversified manufacturing side that provides to fulfill various customers' foundry sourcing strategies or requirements. Quite resilient, we actually do see we position ourselves well. Welcome any opportunity from our customers. And as of currently, there are projects that which will materialize after 2025. Many ongoing.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Thank you very much, Jason.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. Next question, Charlie Chan, Morgan Stanley. Go ahead, please.

Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Hello, Jason, Chitung. First of all, happy New Year. And the year is a little bit unfortunate, and hope your financial damage will be fully recovered. So first of all, I wasn't very clear about your comments about second quarter sensitivity. Jason, if I may, can I double confirm that you said QQ, you are expecting fab utilization to go a little bit higher and above the seasonal? Can you clarify your comments about second quarter growth? Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

First, thank you, and happy New Year to you too. We definitely will navigate through this earthquake situation hopefully quickly, and we can recover and help our customer with their delivery, urgent delivery, and with the shipments. Now, coming back to the quarterly guidance, outlook projection. What I said earlier, too early to provide a Q2 guidance. Our Q1 2025 is better than seasonality. It is better than we originally expected. The short-term visibility remained limited, partly because the non-fundamental factors like this, the U.S. tariffs in relation to the U.S. tariffs. We certainly hope that Q2 will grow sequentially. At this point, the visibility remained low. We just have to wait and see. Once we have clarity, we will provide more guidance.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Meanwhile, we are confident with our current 22-nanometer product pipeline, which will enter production this year and to fill our second-half growth, so we expect 2025 to grow our revenue in 2025, mainly with the expectation that we will have the product launch on 22, starting in second half of 2025.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Got it. Thanks. Yeah. So by the way, you were very correct about last year's industry growth. So I think you said low single—sorry, single-digit growth, right? And it turned out to be like a 6% growth for overall foundry sector. So yeah, I also quite agree with you that inventory levels are quite healthy and semiconductor increase in PC smartphone probably will make this year a little bit better than last year. Yeah. So switching gears to those advanced packaging business, right? So I think last call talked about interposer, but recently there's a news talking about you probably will do wafer-on-wafer, right, which is a kind of a 3D packaging for a U.S. customer too. Want to talk more about this development and how do you compare your wafer-on-wafer or hybrid bonding technology to your industry peers like TSMC or 3D packaging, right?

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

But the comparison between your 3D IC technology versus either TSMC or SMIC, that would be great.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Sure. Well, first.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Great. Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

You talk about the projection. I do want to have some clear inventory projection on our side. The indication on the DOI decrease as expected in the third quarter of 2024, what we have reported in the past, that indicating a stable demand in the end market. In terms of application, the DOI inventory for consumer electronics are approaching the healthy level. However, the DOI remains relatively high in the automotive and industrial sectors. We believe it will still take more time to digest.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Gotcha.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

And.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Yeah. So coming back to the advanced packaging, first of all, we typically do not comment on any market speculation and specific customers. Like I said, we are broadening our packaging technology offering beyond the 2.5D interposer, which we have shipped in the past. The wafer-on-wafer hybrid bonding is one of the capability and technology that we provide. And in addition to that, there's also the interposer with DTC, discrete DTC, and so on. And so they are multiple technology offering and more like in a toolbox for us. And so we do see the, well, the market direction is our product going to require a higher bandwidth and more efficient in many of the different applications. And then we can engage with our customer with those technology capability and tailor to their solution needs.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

So I think our current stage is trying to equip ourselves to be capable of doing so. Then we would be able to broaden our solution and serve our customer to enlarge our addressable market.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

I see. How about the optical-related application? I mean, PIC, right? Photonic IC. I remember to stack PIC and EIC, you also need hybrid bonding, right? So I'm not sure if UMC is also considering the kind of CPO or I don't think there's a kind of a supply chain, only NVIDIA, Rubin, right? I think other customers like Broadcom, Marvell, they are also pushing this. So does UMC have any kind of plan to get into CPOs in this market?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

I mean, we're not going to miss out any potential growth opportunity. Well, certainly. When we talk about the increase of communication bandwidth and energy efficiency, it applies to many different applications, not limited to the current GPU and the processors. And there are many others. And so many others will probably require integrating memory logic like the GPU, but in a different bandwidth and also the different capability. So yes, we do see there will be various applications that require such technologies. And so again, we believe by broadening our technology offering will help us to enlarge our addressable market without missing out.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Thank you. Yeah. And last one from me, it's really your key partner, Intel. So there was an organization change. So I'm not sure if you are comfortable to comment or share what does that mean to your partnership with Intel? Any positive or negative given the recent senior manager and CEO change of Intel?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Well, I mean, what I can share with you is this strategic cooperation. Both [are] very committed to bring this most. It's definitely a right thing for both companies, and our partner and us are complementary to our solution to the Western footprint. And we are seeing a very strong customer interest. We have been working closely and diligently to accelerate the delivery schedule since day one. And at the moment, we are verifying the silicon performance already for the pilot line. And we expect the early PDK will be ready for the first wave of customers by 2026 as planned. Therefore, we believe this cooperation will be beneficial for the industry, our customers, and for both companies. So I do not foresee any changes in this cooperation. And as of now, our key focus is on Wi-Fi connectivity, high-speed interface, SOC products.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

In addition to cooperating on the 12-nanometer process, we are also exploring potential specialty technology solutions to further complement our portfolio with diverse product applications. So first of all, we are still very excited about the engagement, and we are very committed, and we see very good progress at this point.

Brad Lin
Brad Lin
Director and Equity Research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Gotcha. Thank you. Thanks, Jason. This is super helpful. Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Thank you.

Operator

Lu, Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, please. Thank you. Next one, Bruce Lu.

Bruce Lu
Bruce Lu
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hi, Jason. The first question is a good one. The newer business went up quite a lot in fourth quarter. But application-wise, we see that others' application went up a lot in fourth quarter. Can you tell us a little bit more detail? Do you have any market share against there or any project wins? Or what is the application which drives the year of growth in fourth quarter?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Actually, Chitung actually commented about this earlier. The pickup in the Q4 automotive business really reflecting is the customer's modulation for their inventory management. So we see this one-off uptrend, and then we'll align that to the end market demands, which I also touched on the inventory situation. The automotive industrial sector inventory remains high, and it will still take more time to digest. So it's more of an inventory adjustment.

Bruce Lu
Bruce Lu
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Okay. Next one is for your ASP, which declined more than guidance in first quarter. Is there a product mix issue or mostly for the one-off? I mean, or is it pretty much more than guidance across different nodes or any specific node has higher price erosion than other nodes? For example, like 28 or 8-inch versus 12-inch.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Right. I mean, you're absolutely right. It's the blend of. Continue aligning with our customers with the angle that we need to help them to compete in their marketplace, right? I mean, we. So we will respect and follow that market pricing. And from a strategy point of view, that we aren't changed. But from a competitiveness point of view, we will continue aligning with our customers to maintain that. Now, it's important to know that we look at this market in a way that we believe we want to position ourselves still gaining share in our market growing in the low single-digit and our addressable market while striking a balance between the growth piece, which we have shown consistently in our financial performance and with a resilient track record in the past.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

It's our belief that with a healthy financial structure, we have the flexibility to continue to invest in the technology development, in broadening our offering, and for our future growth. We want to stay competitive, but meanwhile, we want to manage that balance.

Bruce Lu
Bruce Lu
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next one, Jason Zhang, CLSA. Go ahead, please.

Jason Zhang
Jason Zhang
Associate Director, Equity Vol Quant at CLSA

Thank you for taking my question. My first question is in terms of your target usage rate. As your competitor in China now, I think their usage rate already reached a very high level. So I just want to know which kind of levels of your usage rate is more reasonable for UMC for this year or incoming year? Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

We always strive to increase the utilization rate, but not on an unreasonable expense to get that. Right now, the current projection is about 70% level of utilization, corporate average. The Certain nodes actually has a higher utilization. Southern has lower. For instance, our 8-inch loading is still under the recovery mode, which will continue strengthening our offering, and hopefully, we can recover that in the longer term, but right now, they are below the corporate average. Our 28 and 22 is actually above the corporate average, and we continue to see a strong momentum in the tape-outs, and so I think in general, like I answered Bruce, I try to strike a balance between that, and 70% right now is not, I will not say high, but I think will be a right number for us to maintain that balance at this point.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

But of course, we'll continue striving for better utilization rates.

Jason Zhang
Jason Zhang
Associate Director, Equity Vol Quant at CLSA

Got it, so my second question is in terms of your competition, so I think your Chinese competitor now already has a very high utilization rate, so have you seen lower competitions from those Chinese players in these years?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

I mean, I can't really comment about the competitive behavior, but the bottom line is we need to stay competitive and competitive in many aspects. Your ASP needs to be competitive. The solution needs to be competitive. Your manufacturing performance needs to be competitive, so I think, again, we look at all aspects and striking a balance of that, and we think this is not a one-time or short-term situation. We need to stay competitive in the long run. If we look at this, in 2025, we project we will outgrow our addressable market, okay, and whether they are less pricing pressure or continue pricing pressure, we believe we will outgrow our addressable market. We are working on several new initiatives to drive even driving our future growth.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Enhance our current portfolio, meaning our addressable market, like I said, expanding from our current portfolio. We are advancing our specialty technology roadmap. For example, the high voltage. We launched the industry first with eHV in May 2024 to sustain our leading position. 2022. Transition to the next generation handset. Besides handset, the customer already adopts our eHV platform for OLED display in the next generation tablets, laptops. And so we'll continue to drive our roadmap into the 14 eHV solution to further extend our leadership. So in that front, I think we can capture the growth and not continue fighting in the same space. In terms of enlarging our addressable market, we talked about our 12-nanometer cooperation that provides technology advancement and addressing high-growth market. Early engaged customers already showing strong interest, and they will pull in the production. We will pull in our production schedule.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

And the feedback is great. And our solution will be very competitive. And again, that's a differentiation from that. And I talked about that we want to provide advanced packaging solutions to serve AI applications with a high-growth potential. And we continue to broaden that offering and develop that. I talked about financial strength to continue to invest in the area that we can fuel the future growth. About that, we need to have. So I think the growth opportunity still lies in this industry because the industry is growing. And in combination with our current portfolio's enhancement, the enlarged addressable market with the right financial model that fuels our future investment to capture those growth will differentiate from that. And I certainly not try to. I think we're just competing with the current utilization number. But in a way, to a very balanced, very healthy corporate level.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

We try to strike a version that can continue to invest in the future and to be relevant in this industry. I maybe give you a little bit more, but I think that's sort of how we feel about this. Yeah.

Bruce Lu
Bruce Lu
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Okay. Okay. Got it. The question is in terms of demand side. My last question in terms of application portfolio. I mean, which segment of yours did you see as a better demand? I mean, such as computers, consumer, or smartphone. And have you seen the demand recovery after Chinese government's subsidy in Q1 or in Q4?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

First, for Q1 outlook, we expect the revenue contribution in consumer segment will increase due to the strength in Wi-Fi, digital TV setup box, and display drivers. The rest of the segment is either flat or slightly declined. We talked about the Q1 outlook. Despite that, the consumers are stronger, but we think it could trigger by either the order subsidy and because we do see the Q1 has better than tariff or additional seasonality behavior. However, we just hope that due to the limited visibility, we can sustain that. At this point, we couldn't give you the Q2 guidance, but Q1 is better than the seasonality.

Operator

Okay. Thank you. I have no more questions.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

Thank you for taking my question. One follow-up. As Jason highlights, that advanced packaging is to outpace the industry and also, while eyeing the disappointing CapEx number itself. For the future growth, should we also expect a higher portion of the CapEx spent by UMC in the future to increase for this advanced packaging kind of the service like our industry leader?

Jason Wang
President at UMC

I mean, in our business, there's actually two major investments. One is investing in the technology development. The second is investing into the CapEx. Once the technology is developed and the customer aligns in place with certain deployed capacity investment, so the CapEx will have that. Now, given our past few years of CapEx investment, given the current market dynamics, I think those advanced packaging CapEx will not affect the major trend of our CapEx projection. I think it will be still within our current trend.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

Got it. Thank you. Got it. That's very clear. And then that's my only question to follow up. Thank you.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Thank you.

Chi-Tung Liu
CFO at UMC

Happy New Year, by the way.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Yes. Same to you.

Operator

Thank you. And we thank you for all your questions. That concludes today's Q&A session. I'll turn things over to UMC Head of IR for closing remarks. Thank you.

Michael Lin
Head of Investor Relations at UMC

Thank you for attending this conference today. We appreciate your questions. As always, if you have any additional follow-up questions.

Operator

Before. Thank you for your participation in UMC.

Jason Wang
President at UMC

Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our conference for 4Q26. There will be a web conference replay at www.umc.com within two hours. Please visit the investors' events section. You may now disconnect. Thank you.

Analysts
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