Samsung and SK Hynix increase investment in DRAM and HBM, equipment purchases continue to grow in the second quarter

[ Gearbest Technology News]Recently, according to Korean media reports, in the second quarter and second half of this year, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix continued to expand their investment in cutting-edge DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), driving the performance of major Korean semiconductor equipment companies to improve. Both companies continued their investment growth trend in the second quarter after significantly increasing equipment spending in the first quarter.

According to reports, equipment manufacturer TES signed two semiconductor equipment supply contracts totaling 42.7 billion won with SK Hynix in May and June. The company achieved revenue of 97.2 billion won and operating profit of 22.2 billion won in the first quarter, of which operating profit increased significantly by 36.2% year-on-year. Financial information agency FnGuide predicts that TES's second-quarter revenue will reach 109.9 billion won and operating profit will be 25.6 billion won, a year-on-year increase of 33.9% and 25.5% respectively.

Another equipment manufacturer, Jusung Engineering, suffered an operating loss of 12.6 billion won in the fourth quarter of last year due to the reduction in orders from China, but its loss narrowed to 7 billion won in the first quarter of this year. FnGuide predicts that it will turn a profit in the second quarter, achieving revenue of 53.4 billion won and operating profit of 8.3 billion won. Analysts expect that the company's performance improvement will further increase in the second half of the year as DRAM demand expands.

In the field of advanced packaging equipment, as the three major memory manufacturers Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron promote the mass production of HBM4, related investments are also accelerating. Hanmi Semiconductor was previously affected by the delay in HBM4 investment. In the first quarter, its TC Bonder business revenue was only 4 billion won, a year-on-year decrease of 96.6%. But on June 8, the company signed an order for HBM4 TC Bonder equipment worth 44.2 billion won with SK Hynix. FnGuide predicts that its second-quarter revenue will reach 227.6 billion won, an increase of 347.1% from the previous quarter; operating profit will be 110.3 billion won, an increase of approximately 13 times.

Test equipment manufacturer Techwing's first quarter revenue was 52.4 billion won, a year-on-year increase of 51.4%; operating profit was 9.7 billion won, an increase of more than 5 times. Second-quarter operating profit is expected to further increase by 37.1% to 13.3 billion won. The company signed a 9.7 billion won HBM testing equipment supply contract with Samsung Electronics last month, and had previously reached an agreement with Micron for the supply of testing equipment for Malaysian factories. Its Cube probe testing equipment has expanded its share of total revenue to 30%.

According to data from the International Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI), global semiconductor equipment sales in the first quarter of this year were US$36.55 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14%. Among them, the Korean market was US$8.93 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16% and a month-on-month increase of 26%. The growth rate ranked among the top major regions in the world (except Europe). During the same period, the Chinese market was US$10.99 billion, a month-on-month decrease of 16%; the Japanese market was US$2.16 billion, a month-on-month decrease of 24%; the Taiwan market was US$8.77 billion, a month-on-month increase of 18%.