ASM Pacific Technology reports net profit up 82 per cent, Hong Kong shares rise

ASM Pacific Technology, the world’s largest assembly and packaging equipment supplier for the semiconductor and light-emitting diode (LED) industries, said on Friday net profit jumped 82 per cent from a year ago to HK$284.6 million for the three months ended March 31.

This represented a 16.8 per cent growth from the preceding October – December quarter, according to its filing with the stock exchange.

Shares in ASM Pacific opened 2.47 per cent higher at HK$82.8.

Its turnover jumped 22.5 per cent to HK$3.05 billion for the first quarter this year but a contraction of 11.3 per cent from the preceding quarter.

“Due to the strong rebound in our bookings, we expect group billings to achieve a double digit percentage improvement in the second quarter over the same quarter of last year, and to produce a moderate-to-strong double-digit percentage gain over the first quarter of this year,” according to the company statement.

The anticipated growth is expected to be driven mainly by the back-end equipment and SMT solutions businesses, it said.