AEM, UMS among electronics players riding AI-linked export surge

[SINGAPORE] Certain electronics and artificial intelligence (AI) plays listed in Singapore saw gains of up to nearly 20 per cent this week amid strong export demand.

AEM Holdings was up by about 18 per cent this week, while high precision engineering group UMS saw a 14.6 per cent jump in the same period.

Frencken saw a weekly gain of about 5 per cent, while other electronics-linked counters such as Valuetronics saw a 9.8 per cent gain this week.

This follows stronger-than-expected data on Singapore’s key exports, which indicated a 15.3 per cent year-on-year expansion in March.

Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), an industry association with companies involved in electronics design and the manufacturing supply chain, forecasts global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment growing from 2025 to 2027, culminating to a record high of US$156 billion in 2027.

CGS International (CGSI) analysts William Tng said this signals a clear shift away from traditional consumer driven cycles, towards major tech companies investing heavily in the relevant materials to compete in the AI field.

Some of these counters rose by more than 10 per cent on Friday (Apr 24) morning, with AEM Holdings was trading at over 12 per cent higher at S$5.74. This was before it eased to S$5.67 at 11.19 am, still up 11.8 per cent or S$0.60, with 8.2 million shares transacted.

Additionally, UMS was up about 11 per cent at S$2.21 as at 9.52 am. It was trading 10.6 per cent or S$0.21 higher at S$2.19 at 11.26 am.

Frencken and Valuetronics were also up 4.4 per cent at S$2.64, and 2.8 per cent at S$1.11, as at 11.28 am, respectively. Aztech Global was also trading higher at 4.7 per cent at S$0.785 as at 11.29 am.

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Singapore’s key exports up 15.3% in March from AI-related electronics surge

Several analysts have said that the impact on Singapore’s manufacturing landscape has been “limited”, as electronics exports are supported by continued AI-tailwinds on a global level, as well as a significant demand for server products and memory chips from the city-state.

Maybank analysts Chua Hak Bin and Brian Lee said that electronics demand is expected to be a “bright spot” for the first half of this year minimally, since AI capital expenditure seems to be “unscathed” amid the recent Iran war, a report by The Business Times noted.

CGS International also raised their target price on UMS to S$2.23 on Apr 16 – with Tng noting how the group will see a stronger H2 this year, compared with H1.

This comes as orders from its key customers are skewed towards the second-half of 2026, amid the acceleration of AI applications.

“The escalating demand for high-bandwidth memory and advanced logic is driving the need for packaging complexity, and (customers of UMS) are major players in this space,” he wrote in his report.