ASE Technology - Q1 2024
April 25, 2024
Transcript
Ken Hsiang (Head of Investor Relations)
Please disconnect at this time. I would like to remind everyone that the presentation that follows may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a high degree of risk and our actual results may differ materially. For the purposes of this presentation, dollar figures are generally stated in New Taiwan dollars unless otherwise indicated. As a Taiwan-based company, our financial information is presented in accordance with Taiwan IFRS. Results presented using Taiwan IFRS may differ materially from results using other accounting standards including those presented by our subsidiary using Chinese GAAP. I am joined today by Joseph Tung, our CFO. For today's presentation, I will first go over the financial results and give the company guidance. Joseph will then be available to take your questions during the Q&A session that follows.
During the Q&A session, each caller will be limited to two questions at a time, but may return to the queue for further questions. With that, let's get started. As per our expectations, the overall demand environment for our services during the first quarter fell on a sequential quarterly basis primarily due to seasonality of electronics products. As was the case at the end of 2023, higher-end leading-edge services generally fared better than legacy services. For our ATM business, revenues were on the higher end of our expectations. During the quarter, key equipment utilization rates were still relatively low, averaging out around 60%. Certain devices initiated a short but unsustained inventory refresh, easing off initially more optimistic outlooks. For our EMS business in the first quarter, demand for our services was slightly ahead of our initial expectations as a result of improving customer inventory levels.
Please turn to page 3 where you will find our first quarter consolidated results. For the first quarter, we recorded fully diluted EPS of TWD 1.28 and basic EPS of TWD 1.32. Consolidated net revenues declined 17% sequentially but increased 1% year-over-year. We had a gross profit of TWD 20.9 billion with a gross margin of 15.7%. Our gross margin declined by 0.3 percentage points sequentially but increased by 0.9 percentage points year-over-year. The sequential decline in margin is principally due to lower revenues due to seasonality of both our ATM and EMS businesses. The annual improvement in gross margin is principally the result of foreign exchange. Our operating expenses declined by TWD 0.6 billion sequentially but increased by TWD 1.7 billion annually. The sequential decrease in operating expenses is primarily due to lower compensation expenses.
The year-over-year increase in operating expenses is primarily attributable to R&D staff-up, overseas expansion startup costs, and higher incentive stock option expenses. Our operating expense percentage increased 1.3 percentage points sequentially and 1.1 percentage points year-over-year to 10%. The sequential operating expense percentage increase was primarily related to lower operating leverage during our seasonally down quarter. The annual increase was related to higher R&D staff-up, overseas expansion, and higher incentive stock option and bonus expenses. Operating profit was TWD 7.5 billion down TWD 4.3 billion sequentially and down TWD 0.2 billion year-over-year. Operating margin declined 1.7 percentage points sequentially and declined 0.2 percentage points year-over-year. During the quarter, we had a net non-operating gain of TWD 0.4 billion.
Our non-operating gain for the quarter primarily consists of net foreign exchange hedging activities, profits from associates, and other non-operating income offset in part by net interest expense of TWD 1.1 billion. Tax expense for the quarter was TWD 1.9 billion. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 24%. Income tax expense was higher than anticipated, mainly from a tax basis gain realized due to the U.S. dollar's appreciation against the Korean won. Such tax expense may reverse itself when the U.S. dollar depreciates against the Korean won. Net income for the quarter was TWD 5.7 billion, representing a decline of TWD 3.7 billion sequentially and a decline of TWD 0.1 billion year-over-year. The NT dollar appreciated 2% against the U.S. dollar sequentially during the first quarter while depreciating 2.96% annually.
From a sequential perspective, we estimate the New Taiwan dollar appreciation had a 0.55 percentage point negative impact to the company's gross and operating margins. While from an annual perspective, we estimate the New Taiwan dollar depreciation had a 0.86 percentage point positive impact to the company's gross and operating margins. On the bottom of the page, we provide key P&L line items without the inclusion of PPA-related expenses. Consolidated gross profit excluding PPA expenses would be TWD 21.8 billion with a 16.4% gross margin. Operating profit would be TWD 8.7 billion with an operating margin of 6.5%. Net profit would be TWD 6.8 billion with a net margin of 5.1%. Basic EPS excluding PPA expenses would be TWD 1.58. On page 4 is a graphical representation of our consolidated financial performance. On page 5 is our ATM P&L.
The ATM revenue reported here contains revenues eliminated at the holding company level related to intercompany transactions between our ATM and EMS businesses. For the first quarter of 2024, revenues for our ATM businesses were TWD 73.9 billion, down TWD 8.1 billion from the previous quarter and up TWD 0.6 billion from the same period last year. This represents a 10% decline sequentially and a 1% increase annually. Gross profit for our ATM business was TWD 15.6 billion, down TWD 3.7 billion sequentially and up TWD 0.8 billion year-over-year. Gross profit margin for our ATM business was 21%, down 2.4 percentage points sequentially and up 0.9 percentage points year-over-year. The sequential margin decline was primarily the result of lower revenues due to typical seasonality. The annual margin improvement is primarily the result of foreign exchange offset in part by higher utility costs.
During the first quarter, operating expenses were TWD 9.5 billion, down TWD 0.5 billion sequentially while up TWD 1.2 billion year-over-year. The sequential decline in operating expenses was primarily driven by lower compensation expenses. The annual operating expense increase was driven primarily by scale-up of R&D labor related to leading-edge advanced packaging and, to a lesser extent, the impact of our incentive stock option and bonus programs. Our operating expense percentage for the quarter was 12.8%, up 0.6 percentage points sequentially and up 1.4 percentage points annually. The sequential operating expense percentage increased as a result of lower operating leverage during the seasonal soft quarter. Noted earlier, the annual increase was due to higher compensation expenses primarily at the R&D level. From an ongoing basis, we believe that as leading-edge advanced packaging becomes more part of our overall business, a higher concentration of R&D workforce will be required.
This will lead to higher compensation expenses within our operating expenses on an absolute basis. However, from a current operating expense percentage perspective, these R&D expenses are ramping ahead of the leading-edge advanced packaging revenues they are to generate in future quarters. During the first quarter, operating profit was TWD 6.1 billion, representing a decline of TWD 3.1 billion quarter-over-quarter and a decline of TWD 0.3 billion year-over-year. Operating margin was 8.2%, declining three percentage points sequentially and declining 0.5 percentage points year-over-year. For foreign exchange, we estimate that the NT to U.S. dollar exchange rate had a negative 0.97 percentage point impact on our ATM sequential margins and a positive 1.49 percentage point impact on a year-over-year basis. Without the impact of PPA-related depreciation and amortization, ATM gross profit margin would be 22.2% and operating profit margin would be 9.7%.
On page 6, you will find a graphical representation of our ATM P&L. On page 7 is our ATM revenue by the 3C market segments. Our communications application shifted 1 percentage point to our computing segment. This shows that applications generally decline together during the seasonally down quarter. On page 8, you will find our ATM revenue by service type. On a quarter-over-quarter perspective, our revenues did not change significantly, with a slight shift in percentage share between others and traditional advanced packaging. However, from a year-over-year perspective, there has been a more pronounced shift towards higher-end packaging for both traditional and leading-edge. It is worth noting that our stated goal of doubling leading-edge advanced packaging revenues in the current year is tracking somewhat ahead of target. On page 9, you can see the first quarter results of our EMS business.
Our EMS revenues came in a bit ahead of where we were, mainly as a result of higher-than-expected customer restocking and an improving customer inventory environment. During the quarter, EMS revenues were TWD 59.4 billion, declining TWD 19.8 billion or 25% sequentially and improving TWD 1.6 billion or 3% year-over-year. The sequential revenue decline is primarily attributable to typical seasonality for our EMS business, while the year-over-year revenue improvement is due to higher customer restocking. Sequentially, our EMS business's gross margin improved 0.9 percentage points to 9.3%. This change was principally the result of product mix.
Operating expenses within our EMS business stayed roughly flat with the first quarter at TWD 3.8 billion, declining TWD 0.1 billion sequentially. Our first quarter operating expense percentage increased 1.6 percentage points sequentially and 0.9 percentage points to 6.5%. The higher operating expense percentage was primarily driven by lower operating leverage while incurring higher global expansion costs.
Operating margin for the first quarter declined 0.7 percentage points to 2.8%, which is ahead of our initial expectations, due again to product mix. Our EMS first quarter operating profit was TWD 1.7 billion, down TWD 1.1 billion sequentially while up TWD 0.3 billion annually. On the bottom of the page, you will find a graphical representation of our EMS revenue by application. The moves here are generally in line with the seasonality of underlying customer products. Automotive was a larger portion of segment share driven in part by inorganic growth. On page 10, you will find key line items from our balance sheet. At the end of the first quarter, we had cash, cash equivalents, and current financial assets of TWD 83.5 billion, increasing TWD 11.5 billion. Our total interest-bearing debt increased slightly by TWD 3.6 billion to TWD 195.3 billion.
This increase was primarily related to the impact of the Taiwan dollar depreciating against the U.S. dollar on our U.S. dollar denominated debt. Total unused credit lines amounted to TWD 393.9 billion. Our EBITDA for the quarter was TWD 24 billion. Our net debt to equity this quarter was down to TWD 0.36 billion.
On page 11, you will find our equipment capital expenditures relative to our EBITDA. Machinery and equipment capital expenditures for the first quarter in U.S. dollars totaled TWD 228 million, of which TWD 109 million were used in packaging operations, TWD 97 million in testing operations, TWD 21 million in EMS operations, and TWD 1 million in interconnect material operations and others. We continue to be excited by the prospects of AI and the incremental volumes and package requirements from these increasingly robust devices. We are continuing to see increasing adoptions across our leading-edge advanced packaging services.
However, we currently are only at the beginning. We see that the foundations that are being built now will lead to new generations of low, mid, and high-end devices alike. And while AI will bring massive semiconductor volumes, step-ups in package-level requirements, and corresponding increases in ATM revenues, the vast majority of these devices are just starting to be developed. Going forward, we believe many products may take a fresh AI angle and may create a shorter-than-normal refresh cycle and thus kickstart overall demand. As such, although the market recovery appears to be playing out a bit slower than previous customer forecasts, we are not looking to adjust our full-year outlook. For the quarter upcoming, we still see a slightly improved demand environment for our services. On the expense side of things, we are seeing some impact to our electricity rate.
Taipower, the provider of electricity to Taiwan, has increased electricity rates by 15% for us. The increase goes into effect at the beginning of the second quarter. Further, summer rates are starting in the middle of May. The combined effect we believe will have a -0.8 percentage point impact to our ATM gross margin in the second quarter. Despite this, we are looking to improve our gross margin in the second quarter given an improving favorable product mix. From an operating expense perspective, we still continue to staff up for R&D and incur site expansion costs. However, with revenue improvement, we will look to keep our OpEx percentage flattish or close to the current range.
We would like to summarize our outlook for the second quarter 2024 as follows: For our ATM business in NT dollar terms, our ATM second quarter 2024 revenues should grow by mid-single digits quarter-over-quarter. Our ATM second quarter gross margin should be slightly above first quarter 2024 levels. For our EMS business in NT dollar terms, our EMS second quarter 2024 revenues should be similar with the first quarter 2024. Our EMS second quarter 2024 operating margin should be slightly below first quarter 2024 levels. That is the conclusion of our prepared remarks. I would like to open the floor to questions.
Operator (participant)
Now we will start the Q&A session. If you have any questions, please raise your hand. When you ask questions, please hold two questions at a time. Thank you. We have a question from Mr. Gokul Hariharan of JPMorgan.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, on the overall end demand outlook, Ken, you mentioned you're not really changing your outlook, which I think was 6%-10% growth for logic semis. Could you talk within that, what are you seeing in different verticals? Last time I remember Joseph talked about auto potentially growing this year. Since then, we have seen some downward reductions in automotive demand. Is that still your view? And secondly, could you also comment about smartphone and communication demand given some of the concerns there? That's my first question.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yes, I think most of the sectors we're seeing bottoming out in the second quarter. But with automotive and maybe industrial, still with some lingering softness. But I think overall, I think things might digest itself. And we're still not changing our view for our outlook for the whole year at this point.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
So you still think, Joseph, that automotive will be growing this year for you?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yes. We are still gaining market share on the automotive. In fact, we're making quite a bit of progress in moving that part of the business up.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Understood. Okay. My second question is on your advanced packaging, the advanced advanced packaging related to AI that Ken mentioned is tracking ahead of plans to double this year. Could you talk a little bit about some kind of longer-term view? Like, how do you see this business evolve? Is it is it going to get to 15%-20% of revenues in the next 3-4 years? Your key partner, TSMC, also raised their expectations on AI-related growth. So just wanted to pick your brains on that. And also related to that, now that you're doing some of the packaging for this lead GPU customer, do you stand a chance to start winning some test business also for them? I think previously you didn't have much testing, whether it is final test or system-level test.
Is there a chance that you could start winning some test business with them as well in the upcoming product migration?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yes, I think we still see very, very good growth momentum in the AI-related or the leading-edge, both for packaging and test. And we're ahead of our schedule for this year. And we're expecting continuous strong growth over next year as well. In terms of tests, I think, overall speaking, we are increasing our full-year CapEx by another 10%. And the bulk of the increase is in tests. And we are making further investments not only to raise our turnkey ratio, but also to penetrate more into the test-only kind of business. And that, of course, includes the advanced testing.
Operator (participant)
The next to ask questions. Charlie Chen of Morgan Stanley.
Charlie Chen (Investment Banking Associate)
Hi, Joseph. Ken, Iris. Good afternoon. I have a few questions. First of all, it's also related to your advanced packaging. May I know your progress in the AI GPU testing business opportunity, especially burn-in? There seems to be a very important process. Do you think a company will gain much market share this year?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
We are investing in CapEx in tests. That also includes burn-in. We're hopeful that we will be seeing some volume by the later part of the year.
Charlie Chen (Investment Banking Associate)
Okay. Okay. Thanks, Joseph. And another one is more on the end demand and the cycle recovery. So we continue to hear that China smartphone-related semiconductors are seeing some forecast cuts, cuts, cuts, destocking. Does the company see a similar trend? And do you think it's a kind of short-lived, or you think third quarter from a smartphone segment, you are also seeing very muted growth into third quarter?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yeah, I think overall we are still looking at the whole market. Most of the sectors will be bottoming out. We're seeing steady, but you know kind of moderate growth in the cell phone area. You know the strongest is still the high-performance computing. But you know the other areas, we're seeing you know gradual recovery. Coming into a second half, we will see much more substantial growth momentum.
Operator (participant)
The next to ask questions. Brad Lin of BofA.
Brad Lin (Director)
Thank you for taking my question. So I have two questions. One is on the advanced packaging. So as we learned that, well, the OSAT, including probably ASE, prefers non-silicon-based interposer solution for this leading-edge advanced packaging. So when or what time does the management see a faster adoption in this type of solution and contribute to ASE? Thank you.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Well, we are in mass production at this point. We are seeing we're having a lot of engagement with another customer, some other customers as well. You know, I can't predict the pace of it, but we certainly see very good growth potential in this area as well.
Brad Lin (Director)
Got it. So for the strong growth that we just mentioned into 2025, currently it's still based on the, well, silicon-based solution. Can I assume that?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Well, it can be both. I think with our own solution, we'll see some pickup in next year as well.
Brad Lin (Director)
Got it. Thank you very much.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
As we grow with the existing packaging.
Brad Lin (Director)
Got it. Got it. Thank you. And then my second question will be about the on-device AI. So what will be the increasing, well, value addition from ASE in the on-device AI? And when do we think the, well, the growth to be meaningfully picked up, well, in the future?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yeah, I think, you know, this year we are ahead of the schedule in doubling that part of the business. You know, for next year, we still see very strong momentum going on. And we not just from the business from the foundry, but also we're having engagement with multiple customers, including design houses, system houses. So I think there's a momentum building at this point. And we do have fairly good confidence in growing that part of business quite substantially in next year as well.
Operator (participant)
The next to ask questions. Randy Abrams of UBS.
Randy Abrams (Head of Taiwan Research and Equity Research Analyst)
Yes. Hi. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to ask kind of follow up on your CapEx, the 10% higher CapEx. So could you go through is some of that also tied to advanced packaging? I think you mentioned the test. And could you remind us now because equipment CapEx was still fairly low in first quarter. What's the CapEx guidance full year now for the equipment or for overall? And the follow-up view is with the optimism into next year, are we starting another CapEx cycle? Like, we're at a low base, but do you think directionally there could be a good increase with you noting more AI opportunities to go after?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yeah, I think for this year, we are upping our CapEx by another 10%. We mentioned last time that this year will be 40%-50% growth in our CapEx. We're upping that. I think in terms of overall CapEx, roughly 61% for packaging and 24% for tests. And for test portion of it, the percentage has increased from last quarter's about we were budgeting about 18% now to 24%. So we're making quite a bit of investment or expending quite a bit of our investment in test CapEx, aiming to leverage on our turnkey services as well as trying to get more of the test-only business as well. So I think in terms of the overall CapEx, roughly I would say 50% of it will be for advanced.
The other half of it will be for the maintenance and also some of the upgrades.
Randy Abrams (Head of Taiwan Research and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Great. No, thanks for the call, Joseph. I'll ask a quick follow-up on that and then the second question. For the test, could you clarify, is that application more HPC, like high-performance compute-driven? And then the second question I wanted to ask on it looks like a few things happening on margins. So on the gross margin, could you talk about the mix change, which you're getting some product mix change, both ATM and sounds like EMS as well. And on the OpEx side, with some more of this investment in R&D, the view for OpEx I guess I should say OpEx growth, how much you think the OpEx has to grow.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Well, I think testing CapEx is both for the HPC as well as other applications. And as I mentioned, we do have a lot of opportunities in raising our overall turnkey ratio. And that includes all products. And of course, in terms of the more advanced or AI-related tests, we are also investing into that area. And we expect to have making some inroads in that area as well. What's the other part of the okay. Gross profit margin, I think the improvement is, of course, coming from revenue increase as well as our more favorable product mix as we go into as we grow our more leading-edge packaging and tests. In terms of operating expenses, I think the increase mostly coming from our beefed-up R&D investments. And we're staffing up in R&D, putting more resources into more advanced packaging and tests.
Of course, we are in the process of expanding our overseas sites as well. There will be some more initial investment put into it. Also, in terms of compensation, we've granted our new round of employee stock options. We will be including that part of the expense increase as well for this year. All in all, I think for the whole year, operating expense percentage will have about 1% increase from last year or less than 1%.
Operator (participant)
The next to ask questions. Rick Hsu of Daiwa Securities.
Rick Hsu (Analyst)
Can you guys hear me?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yeah.
Rick Hsu (Analyst)
Okay. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. So the first question is a housekeeping one. Can you share with us your utilization rates across ATM for the coming second quarter?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
We have about slightly below 60% in quarter one and quarter two with the revenue growth. I think the overall utilization rate could be slightly above 60%.
Rick Hsu (Analyst)
All right. The second question, also, about your second half. I remember last quarter, Joseph, you said your ATM gross margin will go back to your structural target, which is the mid-20%-30%. Is that still viable for your second half this year?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yeah, I think from the forecast we have, we're still pretty confident that we will be reaching our structural margin in the second half of the year. And I think we have a fairly good chance that for the whole year, we can also reach that level.
Operator (participant)
If you have any questions, please raise your hand. The next to ask questions. Bruce of Goldman Sachs.
Bruce Lu (Analyst)
Okay. Thank you for taking my question. I want to ask about your U.S. expansion plan. You know the advanced packaging business, you know a major chunk of it is coming from the foundry outsourcing partner. On the other hand, you probably, you know, be the most important outsourcing partner for TSMC. But as TSMC mentioned during the call, that they are very happy to see Amkor is going to have another advanced packaging facility in the U.S., which ASE doesn't really have a sizable facility there. Do you have any plan to do that? Do you see any change in terms of landscape, how you do the business with TSMC in the future?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
We're not precluding any possibility, but then any investment that we make needs to make economic sense. And right now, you know we're not sure that a greenfield operation set up in the U.S. fits into that category. So you know we are monitoring the situation at this point. And I think bulk of the advanced packaging or tests can still be serviced out of Taiwan and our other area locations as well.
Bruce Lu (Analyst)
Even with you know government subsidy, you still don't think that's a profitable business or a good returns business?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
No, I don't think it's wise to make any commercial decision based on subsidy.
Bruce Lu (Analyst)
Okay. I will tell Amkor that, but.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
I think they know that too.
Bruce Lu (Analyst)
Okay. The next question is for the SiP business. I mean, you know, what do we see the SiP business growth, you know, in this year and the coming years? I mean, it has been muted for quite some time already. When can we see another, you know, growth momentum for the SiP business?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
I think the SiP business for this year, we could see a flattish or a little bit down for the whole quarter because well, for the whole year, given the fact that there are less products being introduced. And you know there are seasonalities, and we are seeing you know you know market conditions are a little bit different from previous years. But we are still quite actively engaging with customers. And some of the products are going to be mass-produced, and some are in earlier stage. But we do feel that come next year, the growth in our SiP business will resume.
Operator (participant)
The next to ask questions. Laura Chen of Citigroup.
Laura Chen (Research Analyst)
Hello. Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Just quick follow-up on the gross margin. Joseph, you mentioned that for the structural gross margin target of 25%-30% is achievable, or not just for the second half, but also for the full year. Is that correct?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yes. I think for the second half, we will certainly reach that level. And we are trying very hard and working very hard to for the whole year, we're trying, working hard to reach that level as well.
Laura Chen (Research Analyst)
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Bear in mind that you know that's with the increase of our utility costs. The recent rate increase is for us, it's about 15% in our electricity in Taiwan. And that will have roughly about a 0.8% impact on us. So that needs to be offset as well. So it's a even with that kind of increase in cost, we are still confident that in second half, we will reach that. And we're feeling at this point quite comfortable that for the whole year, we should be able to reach that as well.
Laura Chen (Research Analyst)
Thank you. May I understand that aside from the utility rate improvement, do we also assume that more mixed change toward to the advanced packaging or AI-related or the increasing, like, testing revenue, which would lead to higher gross margin?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yes, that's correct. We believe the higher advanced packaging as well as our test business will definitely help our margin.
Laura Chen (Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next two ask questions. Jason Cheng from CLSA.
Jason Cheng (Equity Sales Trader)
Question. You previously mentioned that it makes sense for ASE to enter the new AP business when it is mainstream enough to reach the maybe mass production stage for ASE. So is that the case that for leading-edge service that you talk about, how should we expect the volumes or contribution for this kind of advanced packagings or your new business? Thank you.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Are you talking about percentage of revenue?
Jason Cheng (Equity Sales Trader)
Yeah, yeah. Or can you give us more colors on maybe the contributions or your outlook in the future?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Well, well, last year, we have about low single-digit percentage of revenue coming from the what we call the leading edge. And we are as we pointed out last time, we expect to double that to mid-single-digit. And you know as I pointed out, that next year, we still continue to see strong momentum. And but in terms of exact percentage, we don't have. I don't have that number yet because we're expecting not only the advanced packaging will grow. The other so-called traditional advanced packaging or tests and all the other areas will grow as AI development continues to expand.
Jason Cheng (Equity Sales Trader)
Okay. Got it. Got it. So my second question is in terms of your outlook in second half this year. So can we expect seasonality or hot season for any means to sustain our gross momentum for maybe traditional packagings, flagship, or even mature testing or any kind of service or products in Q3 or Q4?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
I think Q3, Q4, or second half, we will see, you know, all kinds of all products to start to grow. But I think leading edge may be above the corporate average.
Operator (participant)
The next to ask questions. Gokul Hariharan of JPMorgan.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the follow-up opportunity. First one, I wanted to explore a little bit is the partnership with the leading foundry for the advanced packaging. Could you help us understand a little bit the nature of this agreement and arrangement? Is that something that you have visibility into the long term? And is it kind of like a strategic partnership that ASE has entered into? Or is it something that doesn't have that kind of visibility given they are also expanding their own in-house capacity as well? So I just want to understand how this partnership works over the next, let's say, three, four years.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Well, obviously, we work very closely with the foundries, and we do have, you know, continuous dialogue with them and to set up an expansion plan for our own capacity. But you know this is something that between us and the foundry, I don't think it's proper for us to discuss what exactly the arrangement will be.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Okay. But do you think it's something that will continue to drive the growth for the next three, four years? It's not like a.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yeah. We do have good visibility, but I don't want to get into the details for it.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Okay. No worries. Thanks. Thanks, Joseph. A couple of quick follow-ups. One is on pricing. Any changes you're seeing on pricing and for the electricity tariff increase, is there any chance you're able to pass through some of these cost increases to customers? And also, secondly, on the traditional packaging side, utilization in the early 60s% definitely seems quite low. Based on your current customer forecast, any new one when we get back to, like, 70%-75%, will it happen this year, or will it wait for next year to kind of get back to 70%-75% utilization? Thank you.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Well, I think going into second half, we will start to see our utilization to grow. I think it's safe to say that we will be above 70% for the second half.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Okay. Thank you.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
In terms of pricing, I think we're still. I think the pricing overall pricing for us is still resilient. There are a bit of a price pressure on the legacy products. But overall, I think on average, I think our pricing still remains to be resilient. I think overall pricing structure will be much better than past cycles.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Okay. Any chance you can pass on some of this electricity tariff because it seems like it's not a one-year thing. It's actually happening every year now, right?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yes. I think all costs are being considered and when we try to set up the proper pricing that we have. So whether it's 100% passed out or it's shared with our customers, I think you know we will just come up with the suitable pricing considering all the costs that we need to bear.
Gokul Hariharan (Managing Director)
Got it. Yeah. Thanks, Joseph. Thank you.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
There are no more questions.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Okay. To sum up.
Operator (participant)
I'm sorry. Sorry. There is a follow-up question from Jason Cheng of CLSA.
Jason Cheng (Equity Sales Trader)
Yeah. Sorry. I have a follow-up question. I wonder if you can provide more details on your comments regarding the leading-edge service. I mean, can you provide some of the type for cutting-edge packagings, like 2.5D or 3D or Chip-on-Wafer or substrate? What kind of the type of the advanced packaging or testing can you currently enter into the mass production stage or have the contribution right now? Thank you.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
We have fan-out. We have 2.5D. We have OS. I think those are all the focus. Those are the type of packages we call leading edge.
Jason Cheng (Equity Sales Trader)
Okay. And all of them account for right now, it's low single digit of the ATM business, right?
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Like I said, for this year, we're expecting mid-single digit.
Jason Cheng (Equity Sales Trader)
Okay. Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Yeah.
Operator (participant)
There are no more questions.
Joseph Tung (CFO)
Okay. To sum up, I think you know we had a better than expected first quarter. Going into second, we are on track of things. For the whole year, we're also expecting same kind of outlook that we presented last time. I think overall, this is all sectors are bottoming out, maybe with some different tech sectors with different time pace or time schedule. But all in all, we're comfortable with the current situation. We will continue to make the necessary investments to service the whatever customer needs, including the leading edge. Also on the test side, we are increasing our CapEx as well to try to win more test business. Thank you very much. See you next quarter.