Hello, Kevin. We are ready to go.
Okay, got it. So yeah. Hello everyone, and welcome to Advantech's Q1 2025 Earnings Results conference. I'm Kevin Chen, Tech and Industrial Analyst at CLSA Taiwan. Today we are honored to have Advantech's management team with us. Joining us on the line are Eric Chen, President of General Management and CFO, and also Linda Tsai, President of Intelligent Systems, and also Grace Liao, Senior IR Manager. So today's agenda, we will ask Grace to help us run through about the first quarter result, and Eric will follow to give us the business update and also the second quarter, 2025 guidance. And then we will move on to the Q&A session. Without further ado, I'll now pass over to Grace. Grace, the floor is yours.
Okay, thank you, Kevin. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for participating in this conference. This is Grace Liao. Regarding our First Quarter 2025 Financial Results, Q1 revenue reached TWD 17.35 billion, increased 25% year on year and 6% quarter on quarter. Gross margin rate reached 40.5%, slightly improved compared to the same period last year. Operating profit reached TWD 2.9 billion, with OP rate reported 16.9%, which is greatly improved from 13.8% in Q1 2024 due to lower expenses rate resulting from revenue scale up and better expenses control. Q1 effective tax rate was 17%. Net income reached TWD 2.73 billion, increased 37% year- on- year. Earnings per share in Q1 2025 were TWD 3.17. Q1 2025 overall performance were near the high end of original guidance.
Profitability outperformed with GP rate, OP rate, and net income rate all enjoy significant increase year- on- year basis. For regional performance, in terms of U.S. dollar, Q1 2025 revenue reached $528 million, increased 19% year- on- year. For regional performance, most of the region reported a double digit increase due to low basis last year and also enterprise spending recovery. Only North Asia relatively slow, which declined 5% year- on- year due to political uncertainty in Korea market. For major three markets, accounts for 70% revenue contribution as usual. However, the portion of North America and Europe is getting bigger. For North America, increased 23% year- on- year, driven by semi equipment, semi equipment, and also autonomous mobile robots AMR projects. For Europe market, increased 25% year- on- year due to transportation, medical equipments, and also gaming projects.
For China market, increased 11% year- on- year, benefit from recovery of channel sales and also energy and automation projects. In the, product mix perspective, to cope with our sector driven strategy, we will disclose sector mix starting Q1 2025. As in the table, all four major sectors enjoyed double-digit growth year- on- year. IoT Automation increased 20% year- on- year, benefit from the strong performance in energy projects in North America and also China markets. For Intelligent Systems, year- on -year increased 27% outperformed in semiconductor and also transportation projects in Taiwan and network security equipment in Middle East and African markets. For Embedded sector, enjoy 11% year on year, benefit from strong demand in medical equipment in North America and also Japan, Europe markets. On the other hand, gaming sector outperformed in Europe markets.
The last one in Intelligence Service enjoyed 41% year on year growth, driven by healthcare, hospitality, and also transportation inspection equipment projects. For balance sheet, this is also my last page. In balance sheet, cash and also cash equivalence accounts for 29% of total assets. Working capital remains sufficient. For, in inventory.
This meeting is being recorded. Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Grace. These are our prepared questions for the management team. I think we still have time. We will open up the Q&A for the floor. If you have any questions, please feel free to raise your hand and unmute and state your company. Also, you can type in the chat in this Zoom meeting if you have any questions. Maybe before waiting to see if there's any questions online, I have one follow-up for the management team.
Given that China, I think they just reported about their PLI at the last day, which is today, for April, and they seem to have some of the fluctuations. I know that we have seen a strong demand from China channels, especially for their internal domestic demand. How should we think about going forward? What could be the long-term growth rate in China? I know that we have adopted some of the local supply to improve our competitiveness regarding our product and about the pricing competition. How should we think about the market situation in China now?
I think that's helpful. Yes. I would provide the comment first, and later I think everyone can make down full favor. Indeed, in April, we see some of the booking increase from China. I would say this is because maybe it's a tariff issue.
It's not the increasing demand, which means they just give order earlier. The second is that indeed, China market competition is still very high. I believe the worst case has been passed. What we are doing is that how can we improve the margin for China? Even though right now the market share is getting stable, the important margin, as you're saying, we are already implementing more cost-effective components with good quality for the customer or for the market, not only China, probably global. Improving the margin. Second is that getting more and more increasing demands asking for China silicon, which means non-Intel, non-AMD-based, or Qualcomm American silicon. For the China-based product, this is already Advantech invested five years ago. We keep investing in that. That increases our competitiveness to other competitors. Yeah. Here's my feedback.
Actually, two key actions we are ongoing.
The first one is to leverage local supply chain advantages. We have selected models ongoing to try to 100% leverage the local supply chain advantages because China component looks like have a significant cost advantage compared with the global brandings. This is the first one we are trying to address. The second one is we are under discussion to upgrade our China PD position because for the past, China PD is under Taiwan PD's management lines. We are trying to upgrade China PD to try to deliver local comprehensive product lines to fulfill local customer requirements. This is what we are trying to do for right now.
Got it. Thank you, Eric and Linda. Is there any questions from the floor?
Maybe during the waiting questions, we do have some information to share.
Actually, we are quite honored to announce that Advantech will attend COMPUTEX 2025 during May 20 to May 23rd, with the main theme of edge computing and WISE- Edge in action. Welcome to visit us in the booth. Meanwhile, we will hold a very high-profile conference on May 19 at CPC Building, Guoguang Hall. The speaker, including our top management of Advantech and also our Tier 1 global partners such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm, NAGRA, for example. Welcome investors and also media partners to join us during the conference. Yeah. Thank you.
We also welcome you to visit our exhibition in Nangang. Yes. Nangang's exhibition centers during COMPUTEX. You can experience our AI, edge AI, edge computing solutions, especially for the hardware plus software integrate solution. There are a lot of showcase. We are waiting for you to join.
Please join us to experience what we can offer to our customers to experience it.
Okay. Thank you, management. Maybe one last question from me, and we will see if there's any questions from the floor. I'm still wondering about, I know there's still a lot of uncertainties, especially in second half, given that the tariff and also Trump administration, their movement, still unpredictable. How should we, how's our thoughts regarding to our growth into this year for full years? I understand that we have acquired Aures, and our organic growth seems to see some of the recovery. How should we think about the base case and also maybe the worst case for this year, full year growth?
I think the best case we will have above 20% growth. Yeah. This is the case we want to achieve.
The worst case, I believe, will be above 15%. I guess I just guess, yeah, because there are still a lot of uncertainty in the second half. Worst case is 15%, and the better case is above 20% for this year.
Again, as a company policy, we actually announce our guidance quarter by quarter. This is a wild guess for the full year. It is not official guidance. Yeah. Yeah. Please understand. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there any further questions from the floor? Okay. It seems there are no further questions. Thank you all for joining today's Advantech earnings call. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Advantech's IR team or email me directly. I think see you next time next quarter, and have a nice day. Thank you all for attending. Thank you. Thank you.