Shares in Chinese chipmaker SMIC drop nearly 7% after earnings miss

Shares of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, China’s largest contract chip maker, fell nearly 7% Friday after its first-quarter earnings missed estimates.

After trading on Thursday, the company reported a first-quarter revenue of $2.24 billion, up about 28% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, profit attributable to shareholders surged 162% year on year to $188 million.

However, both figures missed LSEG mean estimates of $2.34 billion in revenue and $225.1 million in net income, as well as the company’s own forecasts.

During an earnings call Friday, an SMIC representative said the earnings missed original guidance due to “production fluctuations” which sent blended average selling prices falling. This impact is expected to extend into the second quarter, they added.

For the current quarter, the chipmaker forecasted revenue to fall 4% to 6% sequentially. Gross margin is also expected to fall within the range of 18% to 20%, compared to 22.5% in the first quarter.

Still, the first quarter saw SMIC’s wafer shipments increase by 15% from the previous quarter and by about 28% year-on-year.

In the earnings call, SMIC attributed that growth to customer shipment pull in, brought by changes in geopolitics and increased demand driven by government policies such as domestic trade-in programs and consumption subsidies.

In another positive sign for the company, its first-quarter capacity utilization— the percentage of total available manufacturing capacity that is being used at any given time— reached 89.6%, up 4.1% quarter on quarter.

“SMIC’s nearly 90% utilization rate reflects strong domestic demand for semiconductors, likely driven by smartphone and consumer electronics production,” said Ray Wang, a Washington-based semiconductor and technology analyst, adding that the demand was also reflected in the company’s strong quarterly revenue growth.

Meanwhile, the company said in the earnings call that it is “currently in an important period of capacity construction, roll out, and continuously increasing market share.”

However, SMIC’s first-quarter research and development spending decreased to $148.9 million, down from $217 million in the previous quarter.

Amid increased demand, it will be crucial for SMIC to continue ramping up their capacity, Simon Chen, principal analyst of semiconductor manufacturing at Informa Tech told CNBC.

SMIC generates most of its revenue from older-generation semiconductors, often referred to as “mature-node” or “legacy” chips, which are commonly found in consumer electronics and industrial equipment.

The state-backed chipmaker is critical to Beijing’s ambitions to build a self-sufficient semiconductor supply chain, with the government pumping billions into such efforts. Over 84% of its first-quarter revenue was derived from customers in China.

“The localization transformation of the supply chain has been strengthened, and more manufacturing demand has shifted back domestically,” a representative said Friday.

However, chip analysts say the chipmaker’s ability to increase capacity in advance chips — used in applications that demand higher levels of computing performance and efficiency at higher yields — is limited.

This is due to U.S.-led export controls, which prevent it from accessing some of the world’s most advanced chip-making equipment from the Netherlands-based ASML. 

Nevertheless, the chipmaker appears to be making some breakthroughs. Advanced chips manufactured by SMIC have reportedly appeared in various Huawei products, notably in the Mate 60 Pro smartphone and some AI processors.

In the earnings call, the company also said it would closely monitor the potential impacts of the U.S.-China trade war on its demand, noting a lack of visibility for the second half of the year.

Phelix Lee, an equity analyst for Morningstar focused on semiconductors, told CNBC that the impacts of U.S. tariffs on SMIC are limited due to most of its revenue coming from Chinese customers.

While U.S. customers make up about 8-15% of revenue on a quarterly basis, the chips usually remain and are consumed in Chinese products and end users, he said.

“There could be some disruption to chemical, gas, and equipment supply; but the firm is working on alternatives in China and other non-U.S. regions,” he added.

SMIC’s Hong Kong-listed shares have gained over 32.23% year-to-date.