Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 5): Unisem (M) Bhd rose as much as 5% on reports 2014 world semiconductor sales rose 10% to a record high from a year earlier. The better numbers have reaffirmed analysts' positive outlook on the sector.

Unisem (fundamental:0.4; valuation: 0.6) rose as much as 10 sen to RM2.13 before reducing gains. At 3:16pm, the stock changed hands RM2.10 with some five million shares done.

Rival semiconductor producer Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd (MPI) rose as much as seven sen or 1% to RM5.76 before trading at RM5.74 at 3:18pm. MPI (fundamental:1.8; valuation:2.4) saw 154,400 shares traded.

MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd, quoting the US-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), reported that global semiconductor sales in December 2014 amounted to US$29.1 billion (RM104 billion ), an increase of 9.3% from US$26.6 billion a year earlier.

Full-year sales rose 9.9% to US$335.8 billion from US$305.6 billion a year earlier, according to SIA.

MIDF said SIA continued to post optimistic sales figures, and that this level of optimism was expected to continue into 2015 and 2016.

“Double digit growth in sales was recorded for the Americas and Asia Pacific regions at 12.7% year on year(yoy) and 11.4%yoy respectively, while sales from the European region grew by 7.4% yoy. The positive growth will be mainly supported by higher demand from the smartphones and automotive industries.

"In the foreseeable term, the adoption of smartphones remains one of the key driving catalysts for the sector. The transition from 2G to 3G and 4G will inevitably create stronger demand for low to mid-priced smartphones, especially in emerging markets," MIDF said.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)

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