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Investing.com -- Ibiden reported a strong first quarter with profits exceeding market expectations, driven primarily by its Electronics segment and successful ramp-up of Blackwell substrate production.
The company posted a 10.5% year-over-year revenue increase, beating consensus estimates by 1.2%. Operating profit margin reached 18.1%, which was 3.8% higher than consensus forecasts. This resulted in an operating profit of ¥17.6 billion, surpassing market expectations by 28%.
The impressive performance was attributed to the successful production of Blackwell substrate and limited market share loss to competitor Unimicron.
Following these results, Ibiden raised its full-year revenue guidance by ¥5 billion to ¥415 billion and increased its operating profit forecast by ¥7 billion to ¥55 billion. Despite the upward revision, the new guidance for the second quarter operating profit of ¥9.4 billion falls short of the ¥11 billion consensus estimate, while the second-half guidance of ¥28 billion is below the consensus of ¥29 billion.
The strong first-quarter operating profit reflects robust Blackwell substrate production. While some market share loss is expected in the second and third quarters, the company plans to offset this by beginning production of Rubin substrate in the third quarter.
Rubin substrate offers significant advantages over Blackwell, with total area more than twice as large and pricing expected to be more than double. Ibiden is anticipated to maintain its position as the sole supplier for Rubin longer than it did with Blackwell, which should benefit both revenue and profit margins.
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