ASMPT, a Singapore-based semiconductor equipment maker listed in Hong Kong, said the company is seeing opportunities from a proliferation of DeepSeek-inspired artificial intelligence (AI) applications, defending the company’s long-term prospects after its share price plunged 17 per cent on Wednesday.
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The company, which supplies tools for semiconductor and electronics manufacturing, reported on Wednesday a 94.4 per cent decline in net profit for the fourth quarter, to HK$4.2 million. Revenue for the December quarter remained steady at HK$3.4 billion compared with the same period in 2023.
Its shares plunged 16.6 per cent on Wednesday, closing at HK$64, contrasting sharply with a broader stock market rally in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng Index gained 3.3 per cent, while the Hang Seng Tech Index rose 4.5 per cent, taking China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and Xiaomi to new highs.
ASMPT CEO Robin Ng said at a Hong Kong briefing that the company’s non-AI-related businesses are under pressure amid a sluggish economy. The company is shifting investment and resources towards AI-related segments to leverage growth opportunities, he added.
The low-cost, high-performance large language models developed by Chinese start-up DeepSeek are “good for the industry as a whole”, according to Ng. “As AI gets cheaper, there will be more proliferation of applications, and that means more demand for AI chips,” he said.
Strong capital expenditure by Big Tech firms on AI infrastructure such as data centres is driving significant demand for components, packaging services and tools. ASMPT stands to benefit from the trend, as its business is closely tied to the number of chips that need packaging.
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Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post, is leading China’s tech sector in AI infrastructure spending after announcing this week an ambitious US$52 billion plan for the next three years, mirroring similar but larger plans by US tech giants including Apple and Microsoft amid a heightened tech war and geopolitical tensions.