Hello, I am Ken Shang, the Head of Investor Relations for ASE Technology Holding. Welcome to our third quarter 2021 earnings release. Thank you for attending our earnings presentation today. Please refer to the safe harbor notice on page two. All participants consent to having their voices and questions broadcast via participation in this event.
If participants do not consent, please disconnect at this time. I would like to remind everyone that the presentation that follows may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a high degree of risk, and our actual results may differ materially. For the purposes of this presentation, our dollar figures are generally stated in New Taiwan dollars, unless otherwise indicated. As a Taiwan-based company, our financials are presented in accordance with Taiwan IFRS.
Results presented using Taiwan IFRS may differ materially from results using other accounting standards, including those presented by our subsidiary using Chinese GAAP. I am joined today by our CFO, Joseph Tung. For today's presentation, I will make the prepared remarks going over our financial results, and Joseph will be available to answer questions during the Q&A. During the quarter, ASE saw new historical highs in its revenues and profits, led by strength within our ATM business.
Despite electronic industry challenges with various supply chain shortages, the overall health of our businesses remain relatively strong. During the third quarter, our ATM factory lines remained highly utilized through the entire quarter, despite some device order volatility. Supply chain security still appears to be of primary importance to our customers.
Even as certain parts of the supply chain appear to be improving in health, various shortages, such as wafers and substrates, continue to persist. Meanwhile, some of our capital equipment installations for the current season have been completed. While it's true, lead times on some equipment have come in, but others remain in short supply. Our EMS business also completed the quarter with strong year-over-year growth in revenues, despite finishing the quarter slightly behind our own expectations.
Our EMS factories still faced significant challenges related to component shortages and supply chain issues disrupting end product manufacturing. Things continue to be sticky with various manufacturing limitations, making EMS factories run less smoothly. With that said, let's go over the numbers for the quarter. Please turn to page three, where you will find our third quarter consolidated results.
Intercompany transactions between our ATM and EMS businesses have been eliminated during consolidation. For the third quarter, we recorded fully diluted EPS of $3.20 and basic EPS of $3.29. Year-to-date fully diluted and basic EPS is now $7.43 and $7.66, respectively. Consolidated net revenue increased by 19% quarter-over-quarter and by 22% year-over-year.
The sequential increase was primarily driven by growth within both our ATM and EMS businesses. We had a gross profit of $30.8 billion with a gross margin of 20.4%. Our gross margin improved by 0.9 percentage points sequentially and by 4.4 percentage points year-over-year. Our gross margin improvement is primarily driven by margin improvement in our ATM business, offset in part by higher EMS business mix.
Our operating expenses increased by $0.8 billion sequentially and $1.8 billion annually to $12.4 billion. Our operating expense percentage declined one percentage point sequentially and 0.4 percentage points year over year to 8.2%. For the full- year, we continue to see an improvement from last year's 9% level. Operating profit was $18.4 billion, up 40% sequentially and 102% year over year. Operating margin increased 1.8 percentage points sequentially and 4.8 percentage points year- over- year to 12.2%. During the quarter, our non-operating income was zero and contains $0.6 billion of net interest expense, offset entirely by gains related to our foreign exchange hedging activities, investments, and asset sales.
Tax expense for the quarter was TWD 3.6 billion. The effective tax rate for the third quarter was 20%, slightly lower than our expectation. As a result of increased profitability, we were able to offset the recognition of our annual undistributed earnings tax with higher recognition of deferred tax assets during the quarter.
Going forward, we continue to believe our ongoing effective tax rate to be about 20%. Net income for the quarter was TWD 14.2 billion, representing an increase of TWD 3.9 billion sequentially, and an improvement of TWD 7.5 billion year-over-year. From a foreign exchange perspective, NT dollar per US dollar exchange rate was at 27.8 during the third quarter of 2021, 28 NT dollars during the second quarter of 2021, and 29.5 NT dollars during the third quarter of 2020.
We approximate that NT dollar appreciation had a negative 0.3 percentage point impact sequentially, and a negative 1.7 percentage point impact year-over-year to both gross and operating margins at the holding company level. On the bottom of the page, we provide key P&L line items without the inclusion of PPA-related expenses. Consolidated gross profit, excluding PPA expenses, would be TWD 31.7 billion with a 21.1% gross margin. Operating profit would be TWD 19.6 billion with an operating margin of 13%. Net profit would be TWD 15.4 billion with a net margin of 10.2%. Basic EPS excluding PPA expenses would be TWD 3.56. On page four is our ATM P&L.
It is worth noting here that the ATM revenue reported here contains revenue eliminated at the holding company level related to intercompany transactions between our ATM and EMS businesses. Business grew rapidly during the quarter. A strong seasonal uptick in advanced packaging led the way, driven by applications in the computing and communications end markets.
Utilization rates across our key equipment were full or near full. For the third quarter of 2021, revenues for our ATM business were TWD 90.1 billion, up TWD 11.1 billion from the previous quarter, and up TWD 18.3 billion from the same period last year. This represents a 14.1% increase sequentially and a 25.4% increase year-over-year. On a US dollar basis, our ATM revenues grew by 15% sequentially, which is slightly ahead of our own expectations.
Gross profits for our ATM business was TWD 24.7 billion, up TWD 4.5 billion sequentially, and TWD 10.2 billion year-over-year. Gross profit margin for our ATM business was 27.4%, up 1.8 percentage points sequentially, and 7.2 percentage points year-over-year. Our sequential gross margin improvement was primarily due to higher loading, offset in part by a higher raw material product mix and Forex impact.
The year-over-year gross margin improvement was primarily the result of higher loading, improved efficiency, and a friendlier ASP environment, offset somewhat by NT dollar appreciation. During the third quarter, operating expenses were TWD 9.1 billion, up TWD 0.7 billion sequentially, and TWD 1.4 billion year-over-year. The sequential and annual operating expense increases were primarily driven by higher employee bonuses, which are based on a profit-sharing model.
Our operating expense percentage continued to decline to 10.1%, down 0.5 percentage points sequentially, and down 0.7 percentage points year-over-year. During the third quarter, operating profit was $15.6 billion, representing an improvement of $3.8 billion quarter-over-quarter and an improvement of $8.8 billion year-over-year. Operating margin was 17.3%, improving 2.3 percentage points sequentially, and 7.8 percentage points year-over-year. From a foreign exchange perspective, we approximate that NT dollar appreciation had a negative 0.4 percentage point impact sequentially, and a - 2.5 percentage point impact year-over-year to both gross and operating margins at the holding company level. Without the impact of PPA-related depreciation and amortization, ATM gross profit margin would be 28.4%, and operating profit margin would be 18.6%.
On page five, you'll find a graphical representation of our ATM P&L. ATM revenue for the quarter represents an all-time high. We believe that the current year strength has been generated by strong demand across all product lines, including various trailing edge wire-bond-based capacities. A revival in use and a reset in terms of profitability in wire-bonded product lines have helped boost business for us during 2021.
Going forward, we believe that wire-bonded products will continue to grow along with our advanced packaging product lines. From an application of technology perspective, we increasingly see more opportunities for our ATM technologies to proliferate into subsystem and system-level manufacturing. These products service a growing market created by increased transistor costs at leading-edge nodes and expanding consumer appetites for smaller, more elegant electronic solutions. We increasingly provide cost-effective manufacturing solutions that make visionary products viable.
On page six is our ATM revenue by market segment. You can see here a pickup in our communications and computing market segments, with a decline in automotive, consumer, and other products. On an absolute revenue perspective, all segments grew. Of particular interest is that our automotive business grew 68% on a year-over-year basis. We believe that the automotive market segment will be a significant contributor to our own growth during the coming year. On page seven, you will find our ATM revenue by service type. As we mentioned last quarter, our advanced packaging business picked up in accordance with our expectations, increasing 3 percentage points, becoming 36% of our ATM revenues. Wire bonding as a percentage of revenue came down 3 percentage points, but on an absolute dollar basis, wire bond revenue grew 7% sequentially.
On page eight, you can see the results of our EMS business and a graphical representation of our EMS revenue by application. The information we provide in regards to our EMS business may differ materially from the information directly provided by our subsidiary as they report independently using Chinese GAAP. The overall environment at the EMS level has been sticky. Mass production continues to be choppy. Component shortages and supply chain deviations made their impacts felt during the quarter. When we look at the entire situation, we believe we have been adversely impacted by various upstream component shortages and downstream manufacturing issues. This resulted in manufacturing delays for multiple devices and customers. This is why our third quarter EMS revenues came in slightly behind our expectations.
Fortunately, we do believe that most of the impacted revenue will get pushed out into later quarters, but overall manufacturing throughput continues to be choppy, limiting production efficiency. During the third quarter, EMS revenues increased by 24% sequentially and 15% year-over-year. Our EMS gross profit was $5.9 billion, increasing $1.4 billion sequentially and $0.8 billion year-over-year. The sequential EMS gross profit increase was the result of the seasonal build. The year-over-year gross profit increase was the result of a higher volume business. Gross profit margin for our EMS business unit came in at 9.6%, which is an improvement of 0.5 percentage points sequentially and a decline of 0.1 percentage points year-over-year. The sequential improvement is primarily the result of cost differences from differing product mix and better utilization.
On a year-over-year basis, there is a slight decline in gross margin due to new facility ramp-up costs. Our EMS business unit's third quarter operating expenses were $3.2 billion, flat sequentially, while increasing $0.4 billion year-over-year. Annual operating expenses are up primarily as a result of a larger operating base. Our operating expense percentage declined 1.2 percentage points sequentially to 5.3% while staying flat year-over-year. The sequential operating expense percentage decline was primarily driven by flat operating costs with higher revenues. Our EMS operating profit improved $1.4 billion sequentially and $0.3 billion year-over-year. Our EMS operating margin was 4.3%, improving 1.7 percentage points sequentially and declining 0.1 percentage points year-over-year. The overall difficult manufacturing environment continues to persist.
We were able to exceed our targeted 4% operating margin in the third quarter and likely will in the fourth quarter. However, for the full- year, we believe that we will be unable to reach our EMS operating margin target of 4%. We believe that the operating margin variance is generally attributable to IC shortages and the COVID-19 operating environment.
We expect some improvement in the operating environment next year, and as such, we believe a 4% operating margin target continues to be applicable for future years. On the bottom half of the page, you will find a graphical representation of our EMS revenue by application. Consumer product revenues as a percentage of total increased 5 percentage points in line with its seasonality, while our industrial segment came down 4 percentage points. On page nine, you will find key line items from our balance sheet.
Total unused credit lines amounted to $261.5 billion. After payment of our dividend in the third quarter, our net debt-to-equity ratio temporarily increased to 71%. On page 10, you'll find our equipment capital expenditures. Amounts on this slide are denoted in US dollars. Machinery and equipment capital expenditures for the third quarter totaled $468 million, of which $294 million were used in packaging, $101 million in testing, $60 million in EMS operations, and $13 million in interconnect materials and others. At this time, we see a slight uptick in our capital expenditures, now up 25% from last year. This pickup in expected capital spending relates to additional opportunities in advanced packaging and test business generated by our turnkey strategy.
Financially speaking, our equipment capital expenditures expand factory capacity, and utilization of that factory capacity generates EBITDA. Each equipment capital investment scales up facilities to generate additional revenue and EBITDA. This chart represents the ongoing EBITDA-generating capability of the company. EBITDA for the most recent four quarters was $3.9 billion, significantly ahead of our CapEx, even in a high CapEx timeframe. $3.9 billion of EBITDA, stated another way, represents TWD 25.8 of EBITDA per share. As of the end of the third quarter, capital equipment availability for certain product lines appeared to be normalizing. However, this situation was not across the board for us. There are still extended lead times for certain pieces of capital equipment. For many product lines, we are still running capacity-constrained and still in need of capacity expansion.
We have noticed, especially recently, that much is being made about the timing of our capital equipment decisions. We understand this from a simplified perspective may serve as a predictive indicator, but this indicator can easily be misinterpreted as it means different things during different times of the season and in different contexts. Spending on capital equipment fundamentally indicates that we believe there is an additional production capacity needed for sustained new business. What does our capital expenditures leveling off during a record year mean? Here is where some of the confusion seems to exist. It means that for this season, after a period of rapid expansion, factory capacity is finally aligned with near-term expansion needs and goals.
We have historically had the luxury of being able to judge our capital expenditures with a relatively short lead time, meaning we traditionally finalize our equipment orders about three to six months ahead of delivery. This allows for a finer level of precision and granularity, as well as better alignment with incoming business. Because of these short lead times and the annual seasonality of electronics, this intersection of capacity and expansion goals happens every single year. In fact, this intersection is actually happening substantially later in the year than in previous years. Our wire bonding CapEx leveling off this late in the manufacturing season actually means there was strong demand this year and capacity took a long time to catch up. In short, we are having a really good year. What it doesn't mean from our perspective is that a near-term correction is coming.
Quite to the contrary, we still see growth in our business next year. We usually do not make detailed comments on next year's outlook this early. Given the level of volatility driven by what would seem to be a focus on noise versus the actual signal, we feel it prudent to express a more extensive view. We are again put into a position, much like we were last year at this time, in which the company's outlook signaled strength amongst generally cautious sentiment. The overall manufacturing environment remains positive for us, but admittedly, some of the data is a bit difficult to interpret.
While we do not presume to have the definitive answer on the semiconductor cycle, we do wish to express that we continue to have strong order flow from the vast majority of our customers, with orders extending well into 2022 and some as far out as 2023, well beyond normal booking times. From a more macro perspective, our data points taken along with the understanding that global wafer supply remains in severe shortage. This shortage is at a grand scale, causing design products unable to find manufacturing slots across the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. Products with high promise relating to 5G, AI, IoT, and ADAS are being delayed, if not outright being canceled in this environment. Despite noise of double booking, product and end market softness, we believe there still exists substantial pent-up demand.
Barring a significant industry-wide correction, we expect whatever future slack in wafer demand to be quickly taken up by other customers and products looking for production slots during this shortage environment. As such, we believe it's reasonable to continue to expect a somewhat full and linearized delivery pattern of wafers, leaving relatively little room for seasonal softness. With that said, we expect our own manufacturing linearization to continue, resulting in a better than seasonal first quarter outlook and extending into healthy but moderated growth during 2022. This seems to be in line with much of the industry. We would like to defer to Dr. Wu's year-end presentation for more detail, but given this macro environment, we see full year sales and earnings growth based upon simple annualization of our recent quarter's results. Using that same logic, we expect full year margins should also continue to expand.
This is all before we even consider new high-end wafer capacity entering the system, efficiency gains, market share gains, and additional outsourcing from IDMs. From a pricing perspective, even though we may not see as many expedite fees this coming year, we believe the ASP environment will continue to be friendly. Pulling things back to the fourth quarter immediately in front of us, we expect for our product lines to remain loaded with business most likely staying steady. There are potential issues with substrate and downstream shortages, but we do believe things are manageable at this point. With that, we would like to provide our fourth quarter business outlook as follows. In U.S. dollar terms, our ATM fourth quarter 2021 business level should be similar to our third quarter 2021 business level.
Our ATM fourth quarter 2021 gross margin should be similar to our third quarter 2021 gross margin. For our EMS business in US dollar terms, our EMS fourth quarter 2021 business level should come close to our fourth quarter 2020 levels. Our EMS fourth quarter 2021 operating margin should come close to our third quarter 2021 operating margin. This concludes our prepared remarks. I'd like to open the floor for Q&A. If you have a question, please raise your hand in the WebEx interface in front of you. Thank you.
We have a question from Mr. Gokul Hariharan of J.P. Morgan. Gokul? Gokul, can you hear, can you hear me? We have another question from Mr. Szeho Ng of China Renaissance. Szeho.
Hello. Hello. Hi.
Yes, Szeh o, please.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Oh, yeah, yeah. My first question regarding the China power rationing. I'm not sure if there's any impact to your Q4 business guidance.
Power rationing. Huh? Szeho, are you asking about the power rationing?
Yeah, the power shortage in China, any impact to the business outlook in Q4?
It has very, very limited impact on us. I think the shortage through some of the logistic arrangements that we can have and also the support from the local government. I think the impact there could be some minor disruptions on the operation, but the impact is very, very minimal. It's almost negligible.
Okay, good. My second question: Given the fact that a lot of your customers are already on the long-term agreement arrangement, I just want to know if the arrangement is more like a take or pay arrangement or there will be some flexibility of rescheduling in times when wafer availabilities or some components are in shortage.
Well, I think the long-term agreement is really for the customers. It's a product of their seeking for supply security, particularly when we are having a capacity shortage as well as material and also wafer shortages. I think a lot of the customers are a bit concerned with the current situation, and they want to have a more stable supply. I think that's really the reason why we have such long-term agreements. You know, it does create some stability for both our customer as well as for us.
Oh, that is true. What about if they are not able to get the wafer, then would you impose a penalty if they are not able to load up our capacity? Or you would basically allow them to reschedule and load-
Uh-
ramp up the capacity at a later time?
This is really the arrangement to have a better visibility or stability for our customers in terms of supply. I think it is in no way being regarded as a tool for penalizing our customers because of the difficulty that they're facing.
Sure, sure. Okay, all right. My last question, regarding the CapEx spending this year.
Mm-hmm.
Is it all right to have a breakdown by location? Very, very rough breakdown would be fine.
Okay. In terms of.
Let's say how much in Taiwan, how much in China, Korea, for example. Yeah.
Oh, in geographical breakdown.
Right. Uh-huh.
I would say about 85% is still in Taiwan and
Mm-hmm
about 15% in China and other places.
Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you very much, and congratulations. Good.
Thank you.
Next question is from Mr. Randy Abrams of Credit Suisse. Randy? Randy? Next question is from Mr. Rick Hsu of Daiwa. Rick, please go ahead.
Hello?
Yes.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I just wanna make sure 'cause there seems to be some system issue. Okay, so my first question again is housekeeping. What's your utilization rates across the board with wire bonding, testing, and advanced packaging in Q3 and in Q4, please?
Overall, I think packaging-wise, we're still running at full capacity, basically about above 85%. That will continue into Q4. For test is, as we mentioned, above 80% and also continuing to Q4.
Okay, great. The second question is, it appears to be some disconnect between the sell-in and sell-through demand. Meaning that when we look at the sell-in, right, the order from your customers and still very full and also some customers still fighting for capacity, not only at your end but also in the foundry space. Still very strong sell-in demand. However, sell-through, I think you guys must have heard some noises recently from Android smartphone sell-through, not so good. TV also return weak. Chromebook is coming down. I'm just, you know, wondering how do you guys see this, mismatch between the sell-in and sell-through? Are you worried about any, you know, snowball effect going forward, into Q1 next year for the inventory, you know, inventory correction risk?
No, I think what we're seeing here or what we're hearing is that, you know, there are some apparent demand softness in some segments, but all these are very localized and is subject to only maybe a small portion of the overall. I think in general, the whole industry is still going through a rapid growth period because we're seeing rising IC content. We're seeing many more new applications coming on stream, including AI, 5G, IoT, EV, autonomous driving, and so on and so forth. The unit continue to grow because of the rising IC content as well as the new application coming on stream.
You know, one particular, we're not seeing a overall widespread correction. In fact, we're still going through, trying to catch up with the demand. As Ken mentioned earlier on, there's still a lot of pent-up demand that's going through, and we're still in a catching up kind of mode.
Okay.
I don't think there's really a disconnect. It's just that, you know, because of the shortages in terms of wafer and substrates and all kinds of different disruptions in terms of operations around the globe because of the pandemic. I think right now the supply is still you know kind of short and we're still chasing to add capacity to meet our customers' demand.
Okay, great. Yeah, that's good news to hear about. My last question is about your pricing power, or your friendly pricing. Can you talk about this? Do you still see friendly pricing trend going forward into Q4 and Q1 this year?
Yeah. I think for right now, the pricing environment is still friendly, and then we think even going to next year as well. I think what we meant by pricing friendly is really the price level or price environment that can help us better protect our margin and also even to improve our return going forward.
Okay, great. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Mr. Gokul Hariharan of J.P. Morgan.
Hi. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you. First of all, many of your peers and customers have talked about inventory mismatch in the supply chain where you have more inventory of some components and very less inventory of something in most of the supply chains. Is it consistent with what you're seeing? In your experience, how do you think the situation resolves itself if we think about the next three- to six-month kind of timeframe? Because it feels like right now it's not an outright shortage for every component, but it feels like some are in abundant supply, but some are in severe short supply. Just wanted to hear your take. That's my first question.
Yeah. There's still a lot of mismatches, you know, going on at this point, and that's part of the reasons why we're seeing our EMS business is not growing as we were expecting. This situation will continue because, you know, in various areas there's still shortages in terms of wafers, in terms of some of the packaging equipments or even test equipments that we're trying to add. Material is also one of the concerned areas. You know, if you look at the overall supply situation, the capacity increase for the year, at least for the OSAT part of it, I think the CapEx to sales ratio continued to be maintained at about below 20% level.
That means maybe adding, you know, 10%, 15% of our capacity to meet the growing demand. The additional capacity has really been outstripped by the growing demand at this point. You know, adding capacity is not an easy thing and this mismatch is gonna last for, you know, quite some time. I don't see, you know, real solutions within the next six to nine months or even a year period.
Okay. I think last time we talked about 2021 growth being 2x of logic semis.
Mm-hmm.
It seems like we are pretty much on track to that. Are we going to keep that kind of momentum going into next year also? You think that there will be a little bit more of a normalization in terms of growth, as we look at next year?
Yeah. I think, you know, two times logic semi growth is still our goal, and we are very confident that we will continue to reach that goal because the overall demand is strong. On top of the unit growth that we mentioned in the industry, we're also seeing, you know, increasing outsourcing. We're expecting to continue to gain market share. A lot of this really push for our growth coming into next year. We're very confident that we will continue to reach that goal.
Understood. Thank you. Let's say we, hypothetically at least, we get a downturn at some point and utilization rates go back to maybe 70%-75% from the high 80% that we have for many of the parts of the supply chain. What would happen to? Like, how do you think the long-term loading agreements and price increases behave? Are there any kind of riders in your contracts with your customers where there could be some of these price increases that you have seen get rolled back? Just wanted to understand how, I think, the next downturn will look like and how different it is going to be from previous downturns.
Well, of course, the long-term agreement, you know, what it means is really a more predictable volume as well as pricing for a longer-term period. It does create another layer of buffer for both of our customers as well as us. I don't see we're expecting any major downturn coming anytime soon because the, like I said, the new application is still at their early stage, and we're seeing, you know, tremendous opportunities in terms of unit growth. Plus our leading position today, will, you know, we'll get there. Yeah. Also, not only the outsourcing trend is continuing or accelerating, we will get the lion's share of that.
Also, you know, given our position, we will believe that we'll continue to gain market share. All that creates a very strong support to our continuing growth.
Got it. Last question from my side, I think. How should we think about CapEx for next year? It looks like CapEx is likely to go down next year. Now your EBITDA has also improved quite a bit over the last several quarters.
Mm-hmm.
Any indications on how you're going to be using that increased EBITDA? Are we going to see a significant increase in dividends, or is it primarily for debt repayment? Just wanted to understand both on the CapEx side and use of EBITDA as we go into next year.
Well, I think it's a little bit too early to talk about our CapEx for next year. All I can say is that we will continue to make the necessary investments into at the appropriate capacity to meet our customer needs. At this point, you know, it is also true that our cash flow situation continue to improve and we're expecting the further improvement in into next year. At this point, we don't have a fixed plan on how we wanna utilize that cash flow, but it really depends on the opportunity. When it prevails, we will, you know, make the suitable usage of this cash.
Got it. Yeah. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have a question from Mr. Randy Abrams of Credit Suisse. Randy, please unmute your microphone.
Okay. Thank you. Okay, yeah, wanted to ask, a couple clarifications, two remarks. You mentioned, for fourth quarter that you're still, or I should say overall, you mentioned you're still trying to catch up to demand, for IC ATM that you're guiding fourth quarter flat. Is that a function you're supply constrained, being able to ship more? Or is it, a mismatch on where you have capacity? I know it's been a strong year to date, but if you're catching up to demand, why it wouldn't be growing further into fourth quarter.
I think the fourth quarter is really a typical quarter for us, and it's also coming off a very stronger than expected third quarter. Yeah, we're not seeing anything abnormal at this point. Yes, the shortage does create some problem for us to continue to make more shipments out. I think it's a combination of, you know, coming off a stronger than expected third quarter as well as, you know, continue to have some material or even wafer shortages that we're seeing.
Okay. To follow up on the CapEx question, should we think of it this year—I think you still talked about a bit of moderation, like still healthy growth cycle, but moderation. Is that the view we should think on the overall spending, though, that this was probably a high point for what you need to put in or add, and some moderation? Then would there be a shift where it's been a huge catch up, and I think your bonders have been up about 20%. Like a shift in mix toward advanced packaging and test, or do you think pretty similar?
Yeah, I think for next year, I think the more of the weight will be put on advanced packaging as well as test. I think we'll continue to see making progress in terms of raising our turnkey ratio. We're seeing a pretty good potential for us to grow our test business going forward. You know, even starting from third quarter, we're seeing advanced packaging to start picking up their pace comparing to wire bonding, although we're still seeing growth. Next year, I think more will be spent. This year we kind of doubled our CapEx for wire bonding, and next year I think the pattern will be shifting somewhat more to advanced packaging as well as test.
I'm not sure if I missed it. Would the spending be level, I guess, directionally? It feels like after growing a good bit this year, maybe it feels like down a bit next year.
I think it's, we're still in a budgeting cycle, and we're looking at, you know, how the business will come in, and we'll try to come up with the suitable, CapEx budget for the year. Right now, I think, it's kind of too early to say, how much down or how much up we'll have on CapEx for next year. One thing is for sure that we'll continue to invest, and I think there's still a lot of pent-up demand for us to catch up with.
Yeah. Hey, to follow up, two parts. One, you mentioned share gain. Is there a certain part, is it a view generally across the business, or is there a certain area you're seeing particular market share strength?
I think, given the position that we're in, we're seeing outsourcing picking up. The reason why it is picking up is because, you know, there are some market share changes or business model changes among our customers. Some of the new products that's coming out will be outsourced rather than being done in-house. We will get the lion's shares of that. From that point on, I think we will continue to gain market share.
Right. I guess in terms of, I'm just trying to think of the products, like, is there a way to think, are these, like, more compute, like, high-performance compute area?
I think it's all across the board. I think, you know, in terms of automotive, I think we're making very strong progress, and we will continue to gain share on that front. For communication and for high performance computing, I think, you know, when the industry go into more advanced nodes, I think we will be able to grab most of the business opportunities coming out.
Good. Hey, for automotive, your sales up, I think you said 68%. What's your take in terms of for your business catching up on supply? Because there's been downstream limiting quite a bit of vehicle production or even to the point there might be a slowdown. There's a good content story, but how do you feel in terms of catching up or how you see continued growth out of automotive?
I think the industry is really scramble to increase the wafer supply for automotive. On our end, we are very aggressive in terms of further automating our factories to which are more suitable for automotive parts. I think you know from both directions, that give us a very good opportunity to continue to expand our automotive part of the business.
Great. Just a couple final. The demand softness in some segments, are there particular areas you're seeing a bit of that softness show up?
Well, I think everybody's talking about, you know, the PC, talking about the Android-based cell phones. You know, the sell-through in China is not as strong as we're expecting. I think, you know, overall, in terms of units, both cell phone and PC are still growing. I mean, it's not that it's collapsing now. We're seeing that continuing at a healthy level. Also, you know, even with these products that seem to have some weakness in demand, you know, bear in mind the IC content of these devices continue to grow.
You know, this will still be a very strong demand segment for us.
Right. The last question I had, just on the EMS business, with the push outs and a lot of the manufacturing IC constraints, should it be the expectation? You mentioned IC ATM above seasonal. Are you seeing that potential upshift where some production pushes out to first quarter?
You mean for us? For the ATM?
Yeah. Yeah, for your EMS business.
Yes, there is some push out to first quarter. We're expecting a better than seasonal quarter for EMS as well.
Great. All right. Great. Thanks a lot, Joseph and Ken.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next question is from Mr. Charlie Chan of Morgan Stanley. Charlie.
Joseph, thanks for taking my question. My question is about this year again, right? I mean, apparently, starting from June, there was some lockdown for Southeast Asia's biggest facility, in particular in Malaysia. Does the company see a kind of order transfer from customers there? Now it seems like Malaysia, the fabs are recovering. Do you think you can retain those transferred orders? Thank you.
You know, as all our factory are running pretty full, so it's a bit difficult to move the volume around for us. Yes, there was a bit of a disruption in the Southeast Asia sites of ours. I think the situation is under control now and things are back to normal. I think the overall impact is quite small for us.
Okay, thanks. Yeah. Then, yeah, now, we are start to hear, as you said, right, the substrate is a kind of a big constraint. It seems like at ASE also have your own, you know, substrate supply, right? So how soon do you think the substrate supply can stabilize and catch up the customers' demand?
You are referring to lead frame?
Lead frame or substrates.
What we have is substrates, and it does create a good buffer for us to manage our overall substrate supply. Right now we're about some like 20% of our internal use is being supplied by ourselves. We are, I think the substrates factories are running very full at this time. They are also, you know, scramble to add capacity to help soften the situation for us.
Okay. Lead frame you need to source from third party, right? Several, you know, guys, the IDM, they kind of refer that the lead frame is a bigger shortage right now. Any color on that? I mean, the lead frame supply, whether they can catch up to the demand.
I hear it here and there from some of our sites that there seems to be a little bit, you know, you know, the lead frame suppliers seems to be a little bit choppy. I think overall, the situation is still being managed quite well. I think I don't think there's any big problems in terms of lead frame supply.
Okay. Lastly, I know that the company maintained CapEx in wire bonder installation, right? But I'm not sure why, but previously there was some industry chatter about why they're on the pushback. If you look at not your major supplier, right? But ASM Pacific, their B/B ratio dropped to 0.9.
Mm-hmm.
For the third quarter. It seems like the book-to-bill for wire bonder is coming down. Can you help us to understand what's going on here? Do you really need to push out some wire bonder?
I think we are on track with our bonder installation for the year. I think what we mentioned to earlier on is that we expect to have full delivery by October, and we are getting that. We're on track on that.
Mm-hmm.
We believe that we'll continue to make investment. On the bonder itself is more balanced now.
Okay.
You know, there's the line balancing equipment is still lagging. In fourth quarter we will continue to add those capacity for line balancing purposes. For next year, you know, there's still quite a bit of requirement that we will have for wire bonding, particularly when we're seeing that wire bonding business will continue to grow, particularly in the automotive segment. So there's gonna be further demand from us.
Great. It would be super helpful if you can, you know, provide that wire bonder lead time as you did over the past three quarters for us to get a sense. Thank you.
Lead time, I think it's, yeah, maybe three to six months.
Okay. Yeah, it seems less tight way.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, okay. How about those flip chip equipment? Do you feel like it's still very difficult to get flip chip related capacity or is it quite available? Meaning the flip chip or testers.
I think the overall situation is that, you know, the equipment lead time is still long because there's still a lot of mismatches in the whole value chain.
Right.
It's kind of difficult to predict, you know, how long a long lead time situation will resolve itself, how long it will take.
Okay. Thanks. This is super helpful. Thanks, Joseph.
Thank you.
Thank you.
If you have any questions, please raise your hand now. Thank you. We have a question from Mr. Bruce Lu of Goldman Sachs. Bruce?
Hi, Bruce.
Bruce, please unmute your microphone.
I think we're having some technical issues with this today.
Bruce, can you hear me? Please unmute your microphone from your side. We have a question from Mr. Jeff Ohlweiler. Mr. Jeff Ohlweiler, please unmute your microphone. Hi, Jeff.
I'm on hold.
I think we're having some technical challenges with the conferencing system. Apologies on that. I think, for lack of any way to get these questions in, I think we're gonna have to conclude the call at this time. All right, thank you very much for attending, and we look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you.