AEM Holdings' Q1 net profit surges to S$36.1m on increased orders

IN A business update, AEM Holdings announced that it posted a net profit of S$36.1 million for its first quarter ended March 31, up from S$6.6 million a year ago.

Revenue more than doubled to S$146.8 million, on the back of increased orders for tools, consumables and services from its main customers.

In its outlook, the group, which provides advanced chip-testing solutions, put its revenue guidance for FY2020 at between S$360 million and S$380 million. Capital expenditure is expected to remain at about S$4 million to support engineering and business development needs for new customer programmes.

The group has been working with various potential customers on its AMPS (Asynchronous Modular Parallel Smart) platform, MEMS Testing Solutions (Afore) and TMS services, to grow its customer base.

The TMS division has completed the development project on optical fibre cable-test equipment for 5G backhaul networks and is currently working with several customers on initial orders. The group said that its System Level Test & Inspection (SLT-i) division has successfully installed initial commercial systems for a memory manufacturer and gained traction on its collaboration efforts with some customers to develop the AMPS platform for them. The group said that it remains positive on the outlook of these business segments.

AEM Holdings said that the shift to telecommuting, work-from-home and virtual learning has created an increase in demand for semiconductor chips for servers, personal computers and notebooks.

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"As the industry becomes increasingly aware of the significance and benefits of system-level testing to test more advanced chips, AEM has gained recognition among semiconductor customers," said the group.

It added that its advanced semiconductor testing solutions have placed AEM in an "advantageous position" in these critical times.