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Unisem Q2 revenue hits record US$143 mil; Kenanga says share price already reflects recovery

ID

10621

Status

summarized

Published

04 Aug 2026, 5:03 PM

Fetched

04 Aug 2026, 5:19 PM

Provider

Digital News Asia

Category

malaysia-tech

Original URL

https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/business/unisem-q2-revenue-hits-record-us143-mil-kenanga-says-share-price-already-reflects-recovery

Source URL

https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/rss.xml

Excerpt

Unisem is trading at about 81 times forecast FY2026 earnings and 39 times FY2027 earnings Record revenue, stronger execution prompt Kenanga to up earnings forecasts through FY2027 When Unisem released its 2025 Annual Report earlier this year, management made the point that its heavy investments weighing on earnings would begin paying off in 2026 as utilisation improved at its Malaysian operations while its Chengdu plant in China increasingly became the group's profit engine. The latest quarterly results suggest that strategy is beginning to bear results. Its 2Q FY2026 results released on 31 July (for the quarter ended 30 June 2026) show that revenue rose 20.0% to US$143 mil (RM570.1 million) with net profit up 8.5% to US$2.5 million (RM9.91 million). RM1 = US$0.25 First-half revenue was RM1.03 billion, but the group recorded a RM3.45 million net loss for the six months. The loss was entirely due to the weak first quarter, when low utilisation and elevated production costs resulted in a RM13.4 million net loss. A research note from Kenanga Research said Unisem's earnings recovery has started to gain traction and expects momentum to strengthen in the second half of 2026 as the Malaysian operations approach breakeven, helped by improving utilisation at Gopeng, additional wire-bonding capacity and the recovery at Unisem Advanced Technologies (UAT). At the same time, the Chengdu, China plant is expected to remain the group's primary earnings driver. Kenanga noted that the Chengdu operation has become one of Unisem's most significant investments over the past decade. Built in phases with a cumulative investment of well over RM800 million, the facility began commercial operations in 2017, with successive expansion phases adding advanced wafer bumping, flip-chip and power-management packaging capacity to serve China's growing semiconductor market. Those investments are now emerging as the group's biggest earnings contributor. Cheow Ming Liang, Kenanga analyst said that Chengdu's healthy utilisation and continued capacity expansion should underpin earnings growth in the coming quarters. The research house noted that second-quarter revenue climbed 20% year-on-year and 23% quarter-on-quarter to a record RM570.1 million. Reported net profit was RM9.9 million after a RM15.9 million withholding-tax charge on dividends remitted from Chengdu. Excluding the one-off tax, earnings would have been about RM25.8 million, marking a sharp turnaround from the previous quarter's loss. Management is guiding for another 10% to 15% sequential increase in US dollar revenue in the third quarter, with Malaysia expected to grow faster than Chengdu from a lower base. Gopeng's utilisation is forecast to improve as additional equipment comes onstream, Infineon's MEMS microphone line enters commercial production and testing activities are consolidated there, improving operating efficiency. Kenanga also expects Chengdu to remain the group's earnings anchor. "Unisem Chengdu should re