https://digitimes.com/news/a20200504PD204.htmlTaiwan's CCL maker Elite Material (EMC) has reported its net earnings for the first quarter of 2020 soared 54.1% on year to NT$733 million (US$24.53 million) , the highest for the same quarter on record.
Its revenues for the quarter reached NT$5.91 billion, with gross margin rising 3.03pp to 24.21%.
EMC attributed the sharp profit expansion mainly to strong demand for high-frequency halogen-free green materials needed to support high-end networking and server applications. Mounting demand for PCB materials for medical equipment also drove up the firm's profits in the first quarter. Both materials entail higher gross margins.
The shipment prospects for handset HDI mainboard materials, the firm's core business, remain opaque in the months ahead, but EMC has still expressed guarded optimism about its revenues and profits for 2020, citing growing adoption of anylayer HDI boards in high-end handsets, robust demand from 5G infrastructure, networking and server segments and commercial run of new capacity.
Thanks to its solid tech prowess in developing high-end PCB materials, EMC won major new orders from the world's top-3 server and switch ODMs and top-3 OEM clients in 2019. As the orders will be fulfilled gradually this year, the company expects its 2020 shipments of high-end materials to surge over 50% on year.
EMC said that driven by the 5G infrastructure construction, demand for datacenter-use servers and switches will continue to ramp up in 2020 boosting the firm's shipments of high-end HDI CCL materials.
EMC continued that HDI boards are also increasingly adopted for high-end notebooks, tablets and even desktops, which will help the company increase shipments of HDI materials and enhance its business diversification.
EMC's share of the handset-use HDI materials market will be higher in the 5G era, and the company is now also a leading supplier of SLP (substrate-like PCB) materials for iPhones, further cementing its leadership in the supply of mainboard materials for high-end and midrange handsets, industry sources said.