PETALING JAYA: Things are looking up for MI Technovation Bhd (MI Tech) as its equipment business and materials segment are poised to rebound in financial year 2024 (FY24).
CGS International Research said it expects the group’s equipment business revenue to rebound and grow 59% in FY24 (versus a decline of 4.7% in FY23), to be driven mostly by higher shipment volumes catering to mobile, wearables and high-performance computing industries.
The research house said MI Tech is seeing demand growth for its test handlers in China, given the latter’s push for more domestic sourcing because of the ongoing US-China trade war.
“Additionally, the group aims to ramp up production of its laser-assisted compression bonding (LCB) equipment for a key customer catering to the mobile industry, though we believe this could likely materialise towards the second half of the year as the key customer adds more LCB equipment for its back-end processes.
“We project its materials segment revenue to grow 20% in FY24 (versus a 12% drop in FY23), on the back of improving utilisation rate, capacity expansion and introduction of more advanced solder materials,” it noted.
The group is doubling the production lines of its Accurus Ningbo plant to six by the end of second quarter 2024 (2Q24) to be qualified for more orders from its key customers.
It is also introducing new thermal interface materials catering to high-value packaging processes for server applications. This could further narrow the losses from Accurus Ningbo for FY24, with operations likely to break even by FY25, the brokerage said.
For 1Q24, the semiconductor group posted a 319% year-on-year (y-o-y) surge in its net profit to RM26.79mil or earnings per share of three sen on higher revenue and foreign-exchange gains from the strengthening of the US dollar.