ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call

Hello. I am Ken Hsiang, the Head of Investor Relations for ASE Technology Holdings. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings release. I'm joined today by Dr. Tien Wu, our COO; and Joseph Tung, our CFO. Thank you for attending our earnings release today. Please refer to our safe harbor notice on Page 2. All participants consent to having their voices and questions broadcast via participation in this event. If participants do not consent, please do not ask questions or you may leave the session 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 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 subsidiaries. For today's presentation, Dr. Wu will be delivering the company's keynote. I will be going over the financial results, and Joseph will then provide the company's guidance. We will then be available to take your questions during the Q&A session that follows. With that, let me hand the presentation over to Dr. Tien Wu.

Good afternoon. I would like to give you a 2 to 3 years' outlook for the ASE business. This represents the best perspective that we have as of today from our partners as well as customers. Let me talk about the megatrend and future opportunities. The AI server cycle continues, primarily led by hyperscaler and the data center development. There's a lot of activity in the physical layers via edge applications. For example, we're seeing more design perspectives regarding robotics and drones, as well as the equipment surrounding automotive and smart manufacturing. I think the volume will gradually show up in the next 2 years, which is what we're looking for. We are seeing, last year, the mainstream business recover. We believe the mainstream, namely IoT, automotive, and general sector, will recover better this year compared to last year. The second category is what I call the ASE and the Taiwan cluster. I would like to give you 2 backgrounds. Many of you have raised the questions, there seems to be a very fast evolution in technology and demand. So the question is, how will ASE and the Taiwan cluster react to this fast evolution of technology and manufacturing requirements? The second question is, there seems to be a lot of constraints in substrate and possibly memory. And how would that change our perspective regarding manufacturing for our partners? I will try to answer that using a longer time frame. There is no question about the leadership in semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan for this year as well as a few years down the road. I don't think there's any question about our position, Taiwan, as well as ASE. We also understand that what is driving business in AI is mainly system optimization, which includes chip-level optimization, packaging-level optimization, as well as power delivery, silicon photonics, manufacturing efficiency, and thermal management. I would like to remind you, Taiwan has manufacturing leadership in all sectors. In other words, not only do we exemplify strength in each sector, there’s a lot of cross-collaboration, co-design, co-optimization, and co-manufacturing in this era. This is particularly true when there is a supply constraint. The leadership will have a first-mover advantage when there is a supply constraint. In the fast evolution, amidst all uncertainty, customers tend to go for the leader to manufacture the first product in order to maintain their leadership position. So ASE and Taiwan collectively will have competitive advantages over our competitors in this space. Many of you are asking if ASE is going to ramp up last year, this year, as well as potentially in 2027 and beyond. How can we manage all of the factory space, CapEx, and resource management? It is a difficult question, but ASE is not doing this alone. In Taiwan, let me give you a few examples: there's a lot of technology collaboration with our partners, upstream and downstream. In terms of factory space, yes, we are building factories from scratch. We're also acquiring existing factories from our partners, even with clean rooms already installed. Resource planning needs to look at the whole cluster. So here, I am particularly grateful to our customers and partners for supporting us. Now, once again, when there are supply constraints and fast evolution, where everything is running against time, the Taiwan cluster has demonstrated the best efficiency and speed in terms of manufacturing ramp-up. This will set the stage for many of the conversations we will have throughout this call. Lastly, I want to talk about ASE's Taiwan Plus One. Many of you have asked about our strategy in terms of Taiwan Plus One. Our objective is to support all of our customers, satisfying their manufacturing requirements on a global footprint. Here, I want to give you a very simple classification from ASE's perspective. In the future 5 to 10 years, there will be wafers coming out of Taiwan. There will be wafers not coming from Taiwan. For wafers that come from Taiwan, ASE has a very good opportunity to do packaging and testing inside of Taiwan. This might not be all true, but that is the assumption. Now for wafers that are not produced in Taiwan, they might also come to Taiwan, but they might also not come to Taiwan. So ASE is building a footprint primarily in Penang, mainly for the automotive and potentially robotics to capture customers and wafers that are not produced in Taiwan, but would like ASE to use our automation as well as all of our advanced technology to help them produce the system package and the system optimization. We're also building a footprint in Korea and the Philippines. But Penang will be the main sector that we'll be ramping up simply because the Penang cluster has been well established, second to Taiwan. With that, I would like to give you the 2025 recap. The consolidated revenue grew 12% at a holdco level with ATM revenue up 23%, led by Leading Edge Advanced Packaging services and Testing business. The LEAP services reached $1.6 billion, accounting for 13% of ATM revenue, up from $0.6 billion in 2024 or 6% of ATM revenue. The general segment grew 13% year-on-year. Testing business grew 36% year-on-year in 2025, supported by expanding turnkey and leading-edge testing. Machinery CapEx totaled $3.4 billion. Building facilities automation CapEx was $2.1 billion in 2025, mainly driven by LEAP services and testing investments. Next page, 2026 outlook. Our CFO will give you more elaboration after this highlight. We expect revenue uptrend to continue in 2026 and beyond, driven by leading-edge solutions and broad-based semiconductor demand related to AI proliferation and general market recovery. ATM business's leading-edge assembly packaging service is expected to double from USD 1.6 billion to USD 3.2 billion, with roughly 75% from packaging and 25% from testing. The general segment continues to grow at a similar pace as last year. Overall, ATM revenue is anticipated to outperform the logic semiconductor market. We are stepping up CapEx expenditure that Joseph will talk about numbers with the investments in R&D, human capital, advanced capacity, and smart factory infrastructure to support multiyear growth. So our view is ASE is in a very good position together with our customers and Taiwan partners, and we understand the short-term need; we're trying to run against time to fulfill the supply. Long term, we are deploying our floor space outside of Taiwan to capture the next-generation opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you, Tien. For the fourth quarter from a financial perspective, our ATM factory loading was slightly better than originally anticipated. With higher loading, we were able to extract higher operating leverage. Our ATM factories in Taiwan ran at or near full capacity with LEAP and traditional advanced packaging utilization rates outpacing that of wirebond. Non-Taiwan utilization rates continued to show improvement. Our overall ATM utilization rate was around 80%. Our EMS business slowed slightly due to underlying product seasonality. Revenue and profitability were aligned with our initial outlooks. Please turn to Page 6 where you will find our fourth quarter consolidated results. For the fourth quarter, we recorded fully diluted EPS of $3.24 and basic EPS of $3.37. Consolidated net revenues were $177.9 billion, representing an increase of 6% sequentially and 10% year-over-year. On a U.S. dollar basis, our sales increased by 2% sequentially and 14% year-over-year. Our gross profit was $34.7 billion with a gross margin of 19.5%. Our gross margin improved by 2.4 percentage points sequentially and by 3.1 percentage points year-over-year. This sequential improvement in margin is primarily due to higher loading in our ATM business and NT dollar depreciation. The annual improvement is primarily due to higher factory utilization offset in part by the annual appreciation of the NT dollar. We estimate that foreign exchange had a positive 1.1 percentage point impact on our gross margins sequentially, while having a negative 1.2 percentage point impact annually. Our operating expenses increased by $1.4 billion sequentially and $1.6 billion annually to $17 billion. The sequential and annual increases in operating expenses are primarily due to higher R&D labor-related costs. Our operating expense percentage increased 0.3 percentage points sequentially to 9.6% and edged up 0.1 percentage points annually. Operating profit was $17.7 billion, up $4.5 billion sequentially and $6.5 billion year-over-year. Operating margin was 9.9%, up 2.1 percentage points sequentially and 3 percentage points year-over-year. During the quarter, we had a net non-operating gain of $0.6 billion. Our non-operating gain for the quarter primarily consists of net foreign exchange hedging activities, offset in part by net interest expense of $1.7 billion. Tax expense for the quarter was $3.2 billion, with an effective tax rate of 18%. Net income for the quarter was $14.7 billion, representing an increase of $3.8 billion sequentially and $5.4 billion annually. On the bottom of the page, we provide key P&L line items without the inclusion of PPA-related expenses. Excluding PPA expenses, gross margin would be 19.8%, operating margin would be 10.4%, and net margin would be 8.7%. Basic EPS, excluding PPA expenses, would be $3.55. Please refer to Page 7. Here, you will find our 2025 consolidated full-year results versus 2024 full-year results. Fully diluted EPS for the year was $8.89 while basic EPS was $9.37. For 2025, consolidated net revenues improved 8% as compared with 2024. Our ATM business improved by 20%, while our EMS business declined by 5% annually. Our ATM business was 60% of our consolidated net revenue, up from 54% in 2024. Gross profit for the year was $114.2 billion, improving $17.3 billion year-over-year or by 18%. In 2025, our consolidated gross margin improved by 1.4 percentage points to 17.7%, principally as a result of higher ATM revenue mix and higher factory utilization of our ATM equipment, offset in part by the appreciating NT dollar and higher utility costs. Operating expenses increased by $5.7 billion for the year, coming in at $63.4 billion. Our overall operating expense percentage edged up 0.1 percentage points to 9.8%. As a general trend, we believe our spending in R&D on an absolute dollar level will continue to increase as the technological complexity of services we offer continues to progress. However, as our R&D investments start yielding associated incremental revenues, such as those in our LEAP business, we should see increasing operating leverage. Currently, we see our 2026 ATM operating expense percentage declining by nearly 100 basis points with our consolidated operating expense percentage dropping 80 basis points. Operating profit for the year was $50.8 billion, increasing $11.6 billion. Operating margin for the year was 7.9%, representing an improvement of 1.3 percentage points from 2024. Our ATM business accounted for 87% of our 2025 operating profit, up from 80% in 2024. We recorded a net non-operating gain of $0.5 billion for the year, including a net interest expense of $5.6 billion versus $4.9 billion in 2024. Most of the net non-operating gain was associated with our foreign currency hedging activities. Total tax expense was $9.5 billion, with an effective tax rate of 18.4%. We expect our effective tax rate for 2026 to be about 18%. Net income for the year increased by 25% to $40.7 billion. On a full-year basis, we estimate that the appreciating NT dollar had a negative 0.9 percentage point impact on our consolidated gross and operating margins. Removing the effect of PPA depreciation, our gross margin would be 18%, our operating margin would be 8.4%, and our basic EPS would be $10.07. On Page 8 is a graphical presentation of our consolidated quarterly financial performance. Our ATM business, driven by expanding LEAP services, continues to outgrow our EMS business. Looking into 2026, we continue to expect our ATM business to outgrow our EMS business. As such, we believe that ATM revenues and profitability will continue to become a larger share of our consolidated total and continue to positively impact our consolidated margin structure. On Page 9 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 fourth quarter of 2025, we had record revenues for our ATM business of $109.7 billion, up $9.4 billion from the previous quarter, and up $21.3 billion from the same period last year. This represents an increase of 9% sequentially and 24% annually. Our test business' growth continues to outpace that of our assembly business. Test revenues grew 13% sequentially and 33% annually. Gross profit for our ATM business was $28.8 billion, up $6.1 billion sequentially and up $8.2 billion year-over-year. Gross profit margin for our ATM business was 26.3%, up 3.7 percentage points sequentially and 3 percentage points year-over-year. The sequential gross margin increase was primarily due to higher equipment utilization, depreciation of the NT dollar, and the end of higher summer utility rates. Meanwhile, the annual gross margin improvement was primarily due to higher equipment utilization, offset in part by the depreciation of the NT dollar. During the fourth quarter, operating expenses were $12.7 billion, up $0.9 billion sequentially and $1.6 billion year-over-year. The sequential and annual increases in operating expenses are primarily related to higher R&D costs and labor expenses. Our operating expense percentage for the quarter was 11.6%, decreasing 0.2 percentage points sequentially and down 1 percentage point annually. The decline was primarily the result of higher revenues during the quarter. During the fourth quarter, operating profit was $16.1 billion, representing a sequential increase of $5.2 billion and an annual increase of $6.6 billion. Operating margin was 14.7%, up 3.9 percentage points sequentially and up 4 percentage points year-over-year. Without the impact of PPA-related depreciation and amortization, ATM gross profit margin would be 26.7%, and operating profit margin would be 15.3%. On Page 10, we have our ATM full-year P&L. During 2025, we continue to see impressive growth of our LEAP-related services, but we also started to see a strong recovery of more traditional services toward the middle of the year. Full-year 2025 revenues for our ATM business improved by 19%, with our packaging business up 17% and our test business up nearly twice the packaging at 32%. Gross profit for the year improved 25% to $91.4 billion. Gross margin for the year was 23.5%, up 1 percentage point from 2024. Margin improvement was the result of higher factory efficiency, offset in part by the impact of the appreciating NT dollar. We estimate that the depreciating NT dollar had a negative 1.4 percentage point impact on margins here. Adding that back, gross margin for the year would be well within our structural gross margin range. Our operating expenses increased by $6.1 billion during the year, led primarily by higher labor-related expenses. However, our operating expense percentage decreased by 0.5 percentage points to 12.1%. Operating profit improved $12.1 billion to $44.1 billion, while our operating margin improved 1.5 percentage points to 11.3%. Without the impact of PPA-related expenses, the gross profit margin would be 24%, and the operating margin would be 12.1%. On Page 11, you'll find a graphical representation of our ATM P&L. We believe we have had 2 main drivers for our improvement trend in gross margin: higher utilization of factory equipment and a higher mix of LEAP services and revenues. Looking forward, we expect to continue to see a rising mix of LEAP-related business. On Page 12, you will see our ATM revenue by 3C market segments. There aren't many changes here. On Page 13, you will find our ATM revenue by service type. Here, you can see the 2 service types which pertain to our LEAP services. Bump and flip chip and testing, both are becoming a larger component of our overall business. Traditional advanced packaging with LEAP now accounts for more than half of our overall ATM business. Wirebond now accounts for less than 1/4 of our overall ATM business. Meanwhile, our test business during the fourth quarter reached 19% of ATM. On Page 14, you can see the fourth quarter results of our EMS business. During the quarter, EMS revenues were flat sequentially at $69 billion, while down 8% year-over-year. The annual decline was the result of differing underlying device seasonality. Sequentially, our EMS business' gross margin declined 0.2 percentage points to 9%. This change was principally the result of product mix. Operating expenses within our EMS business increased by $0.4 billion sequentially and $0.1 billion annually. The increases are primarily the result of a higher head count and fluctuations related to our profit-sharing program. Our fourth quarter EMS operating expense percentage of 6.2% was up 0.6 percentage points sequentially and annually. The sequential operating expense percentage increase is primarily due to increases in compensation due to head count and related bonuses and profit sharing. Operating margin for the fourth quarter was 2.8%, down 0.9 percentage points sequentially and up 0.1 percentage points year-over-year. Our EMS fourth quarter operating profit was $2 billion, down $0.5 billion sequentially and flat annually. On a full-year basis, our EMS operations revenues declined 5%, gross profits for the year declined 3%, with gross margin improving 0.1 percentage points to 9.1%. Operating profit declined 5%, with operating margin staying flat at 2.9%. As the electronics industry pivots towards various applications of AI, so will the focus of our EMS business. For the coming year, we'll see our EMS business continue to extend its system capabilities further into AI and AI-adjacent applications such as server, optical, and power solutions. There are a number of EMS projects in various stages of development that will help position the business for growth this year and beyond. On Page 15, you will find a graphical representation of our EMS revenue by application. There was a slight shift from consumer devices to computing, automotive, and industrial devices. The shifts here are generally due to underlying product seasonality. On Page 16, you will find key line items from our balance sheet. At the end of the year, we had cash, cash equivalents, and current financial assets of $102 billion. Our total interest-bearing debt increased by $22.7 billion to $272.9 billion. Total unused credit lines amounted to $400.6 billion. Our EBITDA for the quarter was $38.3 billion. Our net debt to equity this quarter was 46%. On Page 17, you will find our equipment capital expenditures relative to our EBITDA. Machinery and equipment capital expenditures for the fourth quarter in U.S. dollars totaled $733 million, of which $485 million was used in packaging operations, $218 million in testing operations, and $28 million in EMS operations, and $1 million in interconnect material operations and others. In addition to spending on machinery and equipment, during the quarter, we also spent $456 million on facilities, which includes land and buildings. For the year 2025, machinery and equipment capital expenditures in U.S. dollars totaled $3.4 billion, of which $2.1 billion was used in packaging operations, $1.1 billion in testing operations, $139 million in EMS operations, and $13 million in interconnect materials and others. For the year 2025, we additionally spent $2.1 billion on facilities, which include buildings and land. With that, I'll hand the presentation over to Joseph to present the company's outlook.

Thank you, Ken. Let me go over the first quarter guidance. For the first quarter of 2026, we will be seeing a much stronger than normal seasonality for both our ATM as well as EMS businesses. Based on our current business outlook and exchange rate assumption of USD 1 to NTD 31.4 versus last quarter, it was about NTD 30.9. Management projects overall first quarter performance in NT dollar terms to be as follows: On a consolidated basis, first quarter revenue should decline only by 5% to 7% quarter-over-quarter. First quarter gross margin should decline by 50 basis points to 100 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Our first quarter operating margin should decline by 100 basis points to 150 basis points quarter-over-quarter. For the ATM business, our ATM first quarter revenue should decline only by low to mid-single-digit percentage quarter-over-quarter. Gross margin should stay in our structural margin range, but fall between 24% to 25%. The sequential decline in both revenue and gross margin in the first quarter is largely due to fewer working days and higher labor costs as a result of higher overtime during Lunar New Year holidays. For the EMS business, our EMS first quarter revenue and operating margin should be similar to first quarter 2025 levels. With that, let me give you some color for the full year. For ATM, as Tien mentioned, we expect 2026 leading-edge revenue to at least double compared with last year, while demand continues to significantly exceed supply. As for the general market, last year's growth momentum will continue this year given AI proliferation and automotive and industrial sector recovery. On ATM profitability, we're expecting a favorable pricing environment for the year. As operating leverage continues to improve, we expect ATM gross margins to stay within our structural margin range throughout the year and improve every quarter, while second half gross margin is projected to reach the upper end of the range. With increasing mix of LEAP services and overall testing, expanding scale, as well as automation, we are optimistic about our mid- to long-term profitability. Lastly, on CapEx, we will remain aggressive in CapEx spending to support the strong business prospects for 2026 and beyond, and to further extend our lead over competition. This year, we plan to add another USD 1.5 billion in machinery on top of last year's USD 3.4 billion, two-thirds of which will be for leading-edge services. Also, needed investments in buildings and facilities are expected to be at a similar level versus last year's USD 2.1 billion. With that, thank you.

Thank you, Joseph. During the Q&A session that follows, we would appreciate if your questions could be as clear and concise as possible and ask singularly. We will start by taking questions from live participants and then alternating questions from our online participants. I, as the moderator, will be receiving each question and repeating and directing each asked question. After participants' initial question, he or she may ask a follow-up question, clarifications of the earlier question, or another question entirely. Then we will move to the next participant. Participants may return to the queue for any additional questions or clarifications. Thank you. Questions? Can we get the microphone over to Sunny here?

Thank you very much. Hopefully, not too late to say Happy New Year. So to kick off, on your LEAP business, you just guided revenue to double to $3.2 billion for this year. So I appreciate a bit more color on maybe the breakdown by OS, outsourcing, full process, and also testing.

I think Tien just mentioned that we're at least going to double our LEAP revenue this year. And the momentum continues to be strong. I think there is still further upside if we're not constrained by a lot of the capacity build that we're scrambling at today. In terms of the breakdown, I think we'll predominantly still be in OS. Also, on the test side, we'll be on the wafer sort. I think the full process, which is going on track, and we do have engagement with multiple customers, but we're going to start seeing the meaningful revenue contribution by later in the year. We expect to triple our full process revenue this year to reach about 10% of the overall LEAP service revenue. In terms of final tests, I think we will also be putting a lot of focus right now on the wafer sort. I think we will start to have meaningful revenue as well by the later part of the year, and we should have roughly 10% of the business coming from final tests in the wafer test business.

Very helpful. I think one highlight from earnings was very strong margin expansion in Q4, given improving utilization rates and also better product mix. How should we think about from here? You've guided the IC ATM gross margin to trend towards the high end, maybe towards like high 20% or even 30%. How should we think about maybe in the next 2 to 3 years, how high could the gross margin get?

So Sunny, you're looking for longer-term guidance on overall margins.

We would like to take one year at a time. So we'll talk about this next year. Thank you.

Thank you, Sunny. Let's give the microphone over to Haas there.

This is Bank of America, Haas. Congrats on the good results and also guidance. First one is just regarding your mainstream business outlook for this year. You mentioned you will grow at a similar pace compared with last year. And in the near term, you also have that part of the business above seasonal. So just wondering what are you seeing regarding shipment versus pricing benefiting on that above seasonal in the near term, and also for the full year, the breakdown between shipment and pricing outlook for that part of the mainstream business? Also related on IC ATM, it's just you mentioned that you will exceed at least USD 3.2 billion for the LEAP business for this year. I remember last year, you only mentioned you will reach $1.6 billion. It doesn't sound like you’re already fully factoring in the potential upside in the LEAP business. Could you also comment on that?

So Haas, you've asked 2 questions here. Going against the rules, huh, very aggressive. The first question is relating to mainstream business and what we see in the mainstream business in terms of growth. My summary of your second question will come after.

The mainstream business has two sources. The first source is from IoT, automotive, and industrial. Those are the general sectors that we are familiar with. Not surprisingly, part of the general loading does come from the AI data center. For example, the power management, the switch router. As they're building the data center, we have a difficult time tracking which part of the general sector loading comes from the AI data center, which part comes from the general sector. But in general, when we talk to our customers, our general sector loading has been quite decent. The pricing environment, I would say, is friendly. I will not comment on pricing increases or any customer-specific information. The only thing I might comment on is when the gold price and the substrate price go up, then it’s up to us and the customer. We do have long-term service agreements. In general, it's a friendly environment. Should I answer the LEAP? The second question is last quarter, we talked about $1.6 billion, most likely to go to $2.6 billion. And this time, we revised to $3.2 billion. You're asking what happened? Because 3 months later, we have better visibility into our factory space. I have said many times, actually, the demand is far beyond the capacity that we're capable of building. And I remember last year, one of you asked us, if this is so good, why don't you just do it? We are. However, we have to manage quality, delivery, all of the resource planning, and these are complicated processes. Equipment lead time and management and engineering training are not easy. We just try to do this very carefully. So right now, our CFO and I, our best view is that we believe we can achieve $3.2 billion comfortably. Over time, if we have any good news, you'll be the first one to know.

Let's see if I can go online.

We have Mr. Gokul Hariharan from JPMorgan.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

We can't hear him.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, you are on the line, but we had some technical issues here. The audience on the floor cannot hear you?

Let's wait a moment while you fix the technical issue, and in the meantime, let's move on to Charlie.

Ken, let me try to fill the void. And Dr. Wu, Joseph, good afternoon. So my first question is about your subsidiary, USI; they announced the acquisition of EugenLight for the CPO repeat component, the optical engine. So I'm wondering what does it mean to the ASE group overall for your CPO business? And going forward, how you're going to split the process between yourself and USI?

Charlie, you're asking about our fiber optic acquisition at EMS, EugenLight. Do we have a comment on that?

The optical business is an important direction for the industry. Everybody understands that. At ASE, we're working with our foundry partner as well as the end customer, trying to implement the silicon photonics part of it, which is a CPO. At a system level, it is not a CPO. However, the optical needs to go through from the chip to the packaging as well as to the system, as well as to the optical transceiver and the rack and beyond. I think the optical technology and business go very pervasive and very long. What you mentioned is USI is trying to piece together early deployment in terms of the future optical roadmap, and this is part of it. I announced the silicon photonics quite a few years ago. The whole industry is trying to do early deployment and development and positioning. We are going to see some early volume on the silicon and the CPO part of it. If that goes well, I believe the volume will start catching up. The technology development and the manufacturing capacity development need to happen well before that. I think this is the USI and the ASE story. There is no conflict. However, it is important that if we can manage the silicon, the CPO, the packaging, we need to have a good know-how as well as inside knowledge on the system level so that we can support our customers on the overall system optimization if we need to switch from hybrid to electrical all the way to optical. It's a very complex question; I gave you a longer answer.

So it seems like ASE is very deeply involved in the CPO supply chain. We do hear there are some technical challenges, for example, putting together a major compute die with those FAU together on a substrate. So I'm wondering is ASE very critical to solve this problem? Or is it more like your foundry partner figuring out how to work it and outsourcing to you guys with the missed production?

Charlie, you're looking for clarification on the actual processes that we can be involved with on CPO?

It's a very difficult question because at the silicon level, the technology complexity is very, very different. So the foundry partner can work on issues of extreme complexity. You're dealing with the silicon level, how they convert the light out. I will not comment on that. So I have partners addressing those. I also have partners addressing the more traditional way. If you do the photo or if you do the electrical separately, those are more existing. At our level, we have to manage the really complex PIC, EIC together or separately and through different kinds of stacking configurations. For example, chip-to-chip, chip-to-packaging, chip-to-rack. So at the packaging level, I will not say it is easier or more difficult. I think packaging requires more depth because you have to deal with different alternatives of the electrical source, light source, and different configurations, different memory, and who connects to what. At a system level, I will not say it's easier, but you got to go deeper. The beauty of Taiwan is we have the chip, the CPO, the substrate, and we also have the system. In terms of sharing co-optimization trade-offs, I believe within this ecosystem, you have a much better chance to hit the first product.

Thanks for your clarification. My next question is to Joseph.

I think you got your 2 questions there. Sorry. Let's try to go see if we can get online again. Is it working?

Hello? Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Perfect.

Thanks for going through all the trouble. First question, Dr. Wu, given this very strong CapEx continuing in '26, could we understand how much of this is going to full process packaging? And when we look forward, how big is your full process business likely to scale from the 10% of LEAP this year? Can it get to like 30%, 40% of the total revenue eventually in like a 2- to 3-year time frame? I also wanted to understand whether it aligns with your partners' future plans because right now, there is a bit of a division of labor between you and your partner, but full process is a little bit of competition with them, but just wanted to understand how it aligns with their future plans.

Well, as Joseph already talked about, out of the $3.2 billion, we're looking at about 10% full process revenue by the end of this year. There are a few clarifications. We're not competing. This is part of the cluster idea, right? Because at the wafer level, the foundry partner will have the first right, the first knowledge, and the first need to come up with different configurations, 2.5D or 3D packaging. The long-term prospect or motivation, how long or how big they want to grow the business, is up to the foundry partner. Our understanding is if we're fully capable of executing, customers as well as partners would like to have a second source, right? Therefore, there will be technology sharing not on the OS side, but also on the full process. The configuration is a big question, right? It's complicated. As the HBM and TPU size grows, the wafer level, the panel level, they have all different configurations of stacking big panel substrates. So the technology evolves very quickly between the foundry process and know-how, and between the customer cost, architectural and design requirements, and the packaging. This is where co-optimization and collaboration will come in. Now everybody has the question of why you're spending so much CapEx? What if the customer switches? First, you have to understand it's not a one customer thing. They are mainly many customers. Are they competing? In a way. But in a way, they're not competing. They're trying to fulfill the diversification of the AI space in all kinds of inference, all kinds of learning large language model. It's a very, very big market. This is the beginning. What we're trying to do is to come out with alternatives and toolbox as fast as we can. Our partners, the designers will have the total freedom to pick and choose whichever way they want to put this together for whichever application. I'm telling you, 90% of the applications we couldn't see yet. This is why the AI is so exciting, right? So with that, our CapEx is fine. The partnership collaboration and competition is healthy. All the iterations and the fast evolution of technology from our customers are not a penalty for us; it’s actually very, very healthy for the industry. Being the first mover in the Taiwan first-mover cluster, you will have some natural advantages. So I believe this is a good time for us to do this.

Thanks, Dr. Wu. That's very clear. Second question, we did mention we expect the mainstream demand to keep growing similar to 2025, over 10%. Within that, obviously, PC and smartphone related, especially smartphone-related is a pretty big chunk, and some of your larger customers have been turning down on smartphone demand for the last few weeks or so. So how does this kind of sit within this expectation of mainstream demand continuing to grow at a similar pace? I'm sure you've done your math and come up with this assumption, but can you explain a little bit?

So Gokul is looking for characterization of our outlook on our mainstream market.

The mainstream market has a significant share in communication and cellphones, which is positive news thanks to our customers and their long-term support. That sector is expected to continue, although there may be some fluctuations. It's important to note that we are fully loaded. The AI data center now includes FPGA, microcontroller, power management, router, and various other components coming to us. We have acquired two factories from Infineon and announced another factory acquisition in Penang for ADI, which is likely to close in Q2. This acquisition will bring in both Infineon and ADI loading as part of the plan, along with co-optimization and co-design for current and next-generation devices and systems. When I mention a general sector recovery, I genuinely mean it. I've observed a recovery in the industrial automotive sector as well. Additionally, there might be unknown demand from AI data centers, as some clients are asking us to handle the loading. With our fully automated process, we could gain market share, and we'll need to consider ASE in comparison to our competitors across various sectors. While I won't comment on that directly, we feel optimistic about the prospects for 2026 and beyond regarding sector recovery.

Do we want to give a try?

I can read out your questions.

I think we're trying to use a speakerphone methodology to microphone, very, MacGyver-like.

Okay. Third time lucky, I guess.

Great.

Thanks for going through all the trouble. First question, Dr. Wu, given this very strong CapEx continuing in '26, could we understand how much of this is going to full process packaging? When we look forward, how big is your full process business likely to scale from the 10% of LEAP this year? Can it get to like 30%, 40% of the total revenue eventually in a 2- to 3-year time frame? I also wanted to understand whether it aligns with your partners' future plans because right now, there is a bit of division of labor between you and your partner, but full process is a little bit of competition with them, but just wanted to understand how it aligns with their future plans.

Well, as Joseph already talked about, out of the $3.2 billion, we're looking at about 10% full process revenue by the end of this year. There are a few clarifications. We're not competing. This is part of the cluster idea, right? Because at the wafer level, the foundry partner will have the first right, the first knowledge, and the first need to come up with different configurations, 2.5D or 3D packaging. The long-term prospect or motivation, how long or how big do they want to grow the business is up to the foundry partner. Our understanding is, if we're fully capable of executing customers as well as partners, would like to have second sources, right? Therefore, there will be technology sharing not on the OS side, but also on the full process. Now, the configuration is a big question, right? It's complicated. As the HBM and TPU size grows, the wafer level and the panel level have all different configurations of stacking big panel substrate. So the technology also evolves very, very quickly between the foundry process and know-how, between the customer cost, architectural and design requirements, and the packaging. This is where the co-optimization and collaboration will come in. Now everybody has the question, why are you spending so much CapEx? What if the customer switches? First, you have to understand it's not a one-customer thing. They are mainly many customers. Are they competing? In a way. But in a way, they're not competing. They're trying to fulfill the diversification of the AI space in all kinds of inference, all kinds of learning large language model. It's a very, very big market. This is the beginning. What we are trying to do is as fast as we can come out with alternatives and a toolbox. Our partners, the designers will have the total freedom to pick and choose whichever way they want to put this together for whichever application. I'm telling you, 90% of the application we couldn't see yet. This is why AI is so exciting, right? So with that, I think our CapEx is fine. The partnership collaboration, competition is healthy. All the iteration and the fast evolution of technology from our customer is not a penalty for us; it's actually very, very healthy for the industry. Being the first mover in Taiwan's first-mover cluster, you will have some natural advantages. So I believe this is a good time for us to do this.

Thanks, Dr. Wu. That's very clear. Second question, we did mention we expect the mainstream demand to keep growing similar to 2025, over 10%. Within that, obviously, PC and smartphone related, especially smartphone-related is a pretty big chunk, and some of your larger customers have been turning down on smartphone demand for the last few weeks or so. So how does this kind of sit within this expectation of mainstream demand continuing to grow at a similar pace? I'm sure you've done your math and come up with this assumption, but can you explain a little bit?

So Gokul is looking for a characterization of our outlook on our mainstream market.

The mainstream market has a significant share in communication or cellphones, which is positive news thanks to our customers and their long-term support. This sector is expected to continue, although there may be some fluctuations that I won't elaborate on. However, we are fully prepared. The AI data center now includes FPGA, microcontroller, power management, router, and various other components being integrated into ASE. We have acquired two factories from Infineon and have announced plans to buy another factory in Penang for ADI, which is likely to close in the second quarter of this year. With the loading from both Infineon and ADI as part of the acquisitions, along with co-optimization and co-design for current and next-generation devices and systems, I genuinely believe in a general sector recovery. I have observed a recovery in industrial automotive, alongside uncertain demand that may relate to AI data centers from clients asking us to manage the loading. Additionally, our fully automated processes may allow us to gain market share. While I won't comment on ASE's performance relative to our competitors across different spaces, we feel optimistic about the prospects for 2026 and beyond with regard to overall sector recovery.

Do we want to give a try?

I can read out your questions.

I think we're trying to use a speaker phone methodology to microphone, very, MacGyver-like.

Okay. Third time lucky, I guess.

Great.

Thanks for going through all the trouble. First question, Dr. Wu, given this very strong CapEx continuing in '26, could we understand how much of this is going to full process packaging? When we look forward, how big is your full process business likely to scale from the 10% of LEAP this year? Can it get to like 30%, 40% of the total revenue eventually in a 2- to 3-year time frame? I also wanted to understand whether it aligns with your partners' future plans because right now, there is a bit of division of labor between you and your partner, but full process is a little bit of competition with them, but just wanted to understand how it aligns with their future plans.

Well, as Joseph already talked about, out of the $3.2 billion, we're looking at about 10% full process revenue by the end of this year. There are a few clarifications. We're not competing. This is part of the cluster idea, right? Because at the wafer level, the foundry partner will have the first right, the first knowledge, and the first need to come up with different configurations, 2.5D or 3D packaging. The long-term prospect or motivation, how long or how big they want to grow the business is up to the foundry partner. Our understanding is, if we're fully capable of executing customers as well as partners would like to have second sources, right? Therefore, there will be technology sharing not on the OS side, but also on the full process. The configuration is a big question, right? It’s complicated. As the HBM and TPU size grows, the wafer level, the panel level have all different configurations of stacking big panel substrate. So the technology also evolves very quickly between the foundry process and know-how, between the customers’ cost, architectural and design requirements and the packaging. This is where the co-optimization and collaboration will come in. Now everybody has the question, why you’re spending so much CapEx? What if the customer switch? First, you have to understand it's not a one customer thing. They are mainly many customers. Are they competing? In a way. But in a way, they’re not competing. They are trying to fulfill the diversification of the AI space in all kinds of inference, all kinds of learning large language model. It’s a very, very big market. This is the beginning. What we are trying to do is as fast as we can come out with alternative and the toolbox. So our partner, the designers will have total freedom to pick and choose whichever way they want to put this together for whichever application. I’m telling you 90% of the application we couldn’t see yet. This is why AI is so exciting, right? So with that, our CapEx is fine. The partnership collaboration competition is healthy. All the iteration and the fast evolution of technology from our customer is not a penalty for us; it’s actually very, very healthy for the industry. Being the first mover in Taiwan’s first-mover cluster, you will have some natural advantages. So I believe this is a good time for us to do this.

Thanks, Dr. Wu. That’s very clear. Second question, we did mention we expect the mainstream demand to keep growing similar to 2025, over 10%. Within that, obviously, PC and smartphone related, especially smartphone-related is a pretty big chunk, and some of your larger customers have been turning down on smartphone demand for the last few weeks or so. So how does this kind of sit within this expectation of mainstream demand continuing to grow at a similar pace? I’m sure you’ve done your math and come up with this assumption, but can you explain a little bit?

So Gokul is looking for a characterization of our outlook on our mainstream market.

The mainstream market, ASE holds a significant share in communication and cellphones. This is positive news, thanks to our customers and their ongoing support. That sector is expected to continue, although there may be some fluctuations that I won't elaborate on. However, it is important to note that we are fully prepared. The AI data center now includes FPGA, microcontroller, power management, router, and various types of loads coming to ASE. As you know, we have acquired two factories from Infineon and have also announced plans to purchase another factory in Penang for ADI, which we expect to close in Q2 this year. All of this, along with the loading from Infineon and ADI, is part of the acquisition, including co-optimization and co-design for current and next-generation devices and systems. Therefore, when I mention a general sector recovery, I genuinely mean it. I have observed a recovery in industrial and automotive sectors. Additionally, there is some unknown demand that could be related to the AI data center that has come from the same customers requesting us to manage the loading. Furthermore, our fully automated general process could lead to an increase in market share. We need to evaluate ASE in comparison to our competitors across various areas, though I won't comment on that. Overall, we feel confident about the general sector recovery for 2026 and beyond.

Do we want to give a try?

I can read out your questions.

I think we're trying to use a speakerphone methodology to microphone, very, MacGyver-like.

Okay. Third time lucky, I guess.

Great.

Thanks for going through all the trouble. First question, Dr. Wu, given this very strong CapEx continuing in '26, could we understand how much of this is going to full process packaging? When we look forward, how big is your full process business likely to scale from the 10% of LEAP this year? Can it get to like 30%, 40% of the total revenue eventually in a 2- to 3-year time frame? I also wanted to understand whether it aligns with your partners' future plans because right now, there is a bit of division of labor between you and your partner, but full process is a little bit of competition with them, but just wanted to understand how it aligns with their future plans.

Well, as Joseph already talked about, out of the $3.2 billion, we're looking at about 10% full process revenue by the end of this year. There are a few clarifications. We're not competing. This is part of the cluster idea, right? Because at the wafer level, the foundry partner will have the first right, the first knowledge, and the first need to come up with different configurations, 2.5D or 3D packaging. The long-term prospect or motivation, how long or how big do they want to grow the business is up to the foundry partner. Our understanding is, if we're fully capable of executing customers as well as partners, we would like to have a second source, right? Therefore, there will be technology sharing not only on the OS side, but also on the full process. Now the configuration is a big question, right? It's complicated. As the HBM and TPU size grows, the wafer level, the panel level have all different configurations of stacking big panel substrates. So the technology also evolves very, very quickly between the foundry process and know-how and between the customers’ cost, architectural and design requirements, and the packaging. This is where the co-optimization and collaboration will come in. Now everybody has the question, why are you spending so much CapEx? What if the customer switches? First, you have to understand it's not a one-customer thing. They are mainly many customers. Are they competing? In a way. But in a way, they're not competing. They are trying to fulfill the diversification of the AI space in all kinds of inference and all kinds of learning large language models. It’s a very, very big market. This is the beginning. What we are trying to do is to come out with alternative options as fast as we can. Our partners, the designers will have total freedom to pick and choose whichever way they want to put this together for whichever application, and I'm telling you, 90% of the applications we couldn't see yet. This is why AI is so exciting, right? So with that, our CapEx is fine. The partnership collaboration competition is healthy. All the iteration and the fast evolution of technology from our customers are not a penalty for us; it’s actually very, very healthy for the industry. Being the first mover in the Taiwan first-mover cluster, you will have some natural advantages. So I believe this is a good time for us to do this.

Thanks, Dr. Wu. That’s very clear. Second question, we did mention we expect the mainstream demand to keep growing similar to 2025, over 10%. Within that, obviously, PC and smartphone-related, especially smartphone-related is a pretty big chunk, and some of your larger customers have been turning down on smartphone demand for the last few weeks or so. So how does this kind of sit within this expectation of mainstream demand continuing to grow at a similar pace? I’m sure you’ve done your math and come up with this assumption, but can you explain a little bit?

So Gokul is looking for a characterization of our outlook on our mainstream market.

The mainstream market, ASE has a significant market presence in communication and cellphones. This is positive news, and we appreciate our customers' long-term support. This sector is expected to continue, although there may be some fluctuations that I won’t detail. However, it’s important to note that we are fully prepared. The AI data center now includes FPGA, microcontroller, power management, router, and various other elements coming to ASE. We have acquired two factories from Infineon and announced plans to purchase another factory in Penang for ADI, which is expected to finalize in Q2 this year. With these acquisitions, we are receiving loading from both Infineon and ADI, as well as engaging in co-optimization and co-design for current and next-generation devices and systems. When I mention a general sector recovery, I genuinely mean it. I have observed a recovery in industrial and automotive sectors. Additionally, there is uncertain demand, potentially from AI data centers, from clients requesting us to manage the loading. Thanks to our fully automated processes, we may gain market share. We should compare ASE to our competitors across various sectors, though I will refrain from commenting on that. Overall, we are optimistic about our prospects for 2026 and beyond in terms of a general sector recovery.

Do we want to give a try?

I can read out your questions.

I think we're trying to use a speakerphone methodology to microphone, very, MacGyver-like.

Okay. Third time lucky, I guess.

Great.