Hua Hong Grace Semiconductor Limited Class A

Hua Hong Grace Semiconductor Limited Class A

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Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 14, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Hua Hong Semiconductor's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call.

Today's call is hosted by Dr. Peng Bai, Chairman and President, and Mr.

Daniel Wang, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please be advised that your dial-ins are in listen-only mode.

However, at the conclusion of the management presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session, at which time you will receive instructions on how to participate. The earnings press release and first quarter 2026 summary slides are available to download at our company's website, www.huahonggrace.com.

Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Daniel Wang, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you.

Daniel Wang

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our Q1 2026 earnings conference.

Today, we will first have Dr. Peng Bai, our Chairman and President, provide an overview of our first quarter performance.

I will then take you through our financial results in detail and offer guidance for the upcoming quarter. We will then open the floor for a question-and-answer session.

With that, I turn the call over to Dr. Bai.

Dr. Bai.

Peng Bai

Thank you, Daniel. Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for joining our earnings call. Hua Hong Semiconductor generated revenue of US$660.9 million in the first quarter of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 22.2%.

Gross margin stood at 13%, a year-on-year increase of 3.8 percentage points. Both figures were in line with our guidance.

Net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company amounted to US$20.9 million, marking substantial year-on-year growth. Despite the rapid capacity ramp-up, the company maintained high capacity utilization rates, with strong performance across all process technology platforms.

MCU, standalone flash, and BCD products delivered the highest growth rates. The company's results were supported by sustained efforts in cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, and by a positive demand signal that started at the beginning of the quarter and became stronger over the course of the quarter.

The global semiconductor industry is undergoing accelerated transformation, as AI and related applications play an increasingly central role in market dynamics. The unmistakably positive impact of AI on worldwide semiconductor market demand, persistent uncertainty in the global supply chain landscape make a more complex market picture that we are facing with.

Hua Hong Semiconductor remains steadfast in pursuit of its key objective of becoming a foundry leader in specialty process technologies, with a core strategy of continuous focusing on market needs, strengthening process technology capability, and substantially increasing production capacity scale. In the first quarter, the ramp-up of our 12-inch capacity progressed steadily, with its revenue contribution rising to 6 62.7%, while our 8-inch production line maintained sound profitability.

Meanwhile, the proposed acquisition of Huali Micro has been accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, entering the substantive review phase. The acquisition is currently progressing according to the established schedule and is expected to be completed in the second half of the year.

Finally, as a veteran of the industry, I remain confident in a bright future for semiconductor industry globally and in China. I'm fully committed to making Hua Hong Semiconductor an increasingly important player in the industry and deliver sustainable value to our shareholders.

Now, I would like to hand the call over to our CFO, Mr. Daniel Wang, for his comments.

Daniel.

Daniel Wang

Thank you, Dr. Bai, for your inspiring comments.

Now, let me walk you through a summary of our financial performance for the first quarter. I will then provide our revenue and margin outlook for Q2 2026 before opening the floor for the Q&A session.

First, let us review our financial results for the first quarter. Revenue was $660.9 million, 22.2% over Q1 2025, primarily driven by increased wafer shipments and improved average selling price, and a 0.2% over Q4 2025.

Gross margin was 13%, 3.8 percentage points over Q1 2025, primarily driven by improved average selling price and cost reduction efforts, and flat with Q2 Q4 2025. Operating expenses were $105.6 million, 8.8% over Q1 2025, primarily due to increased operating expenses for the new production line in Wuxi, and 18.9% lower than Q4 2025, mainly due to decreased labor costs.

Other loss, net was $2.4 million, 70.5% lower than Q1 2025, primarily due to foreign exchange gains versus foreign exchange losses in Q1 2025, partially offset by decreased government subsidies, interest income, and increased finance costs. It was other income, net of $34.1 million in Q4 2025, mainly due to increased finance costs and decreased government subsidies.

Income tax credit was $4.7 million, primarily due to a reversal of dividend withholding tax for 2025. Net loss for the period was $17.3 million, narrowed by 20 66.9% compared to Q1 2025 and 7.5% compared to Q4 2025.

Net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was $20.9 million, 458.1% over Q1 2025 and 19.9% above Q4 2025. Basic earnings per share was point 1.2 cent, 1.2 cent.

Annualized ROE was 1.2%. Now, let's take a closer look at our Q1 2026 revenue performance.

From geographical perspective, revenue from China was $525.2 million, contributing 79.5% of total revenue and an increase of 18.7% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for MCU, other power management IC, flash, and IGBT products. Revenue from North America was $85.7 million, an increase of 51.9% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for other power management IC and MCU products.

Revenue from other Asia was $28.2 million, an increase of 5.2% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for MCU products, partially offset by decreased demand for superjunction product. Revenue from Europe was $21.8 million, an increase of 43.2% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for smart card IC, IGBT, and MCU product.

With respect to technology platforms, revenue from embedded non-volatile memory was $184.6 million, an increase of 41.7% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for MCU and smart card ICs. Revenue from standalone non-volatile memory was $57.1 million, an increase of 33.2% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for flash products.

Revenue from power discrete was $170.9 million, an increase of 5% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for IGBT and general MOSFET products, partially offset by decreased demand for superjunction products. Revenue from logic and RF was $74.4 million, an increase of 11.4% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for logic and CIS products.

Revenue from analog and power management IC was $173.9 million, an increase of 25.8% over Q1 2025, mainly driven by increased demand for other power management IC products. Now, let's turn to our cash flow statement.

Net cash flows generated from operating activities was $130.4 million, 159.9% over Q1 2025, mainly due to increased receipts from customers. It was 47% lower than Q4 2025, largely due to decreased receipts of government grants and increased payments of labor costs.

Capital expenditures were $924.9 million in Q1 2026, including $886.1 million for Hua Hong 12-inch business and $38.7 million for Hua Hong 8-inch. Other cash flow generated from investing activities was $67.9 million in Q1 2026, including $57.8 million decreased time deposits, $10 million interest income, and $100,000 receipt of disposal of equipment.

Net cash flows generated from financing activities was $638.7 million, including $649.4 million proceeds from bank borrowings and $3.3 million proceeds from share option exercises, partially offset by $12.1 million interest payments and $1.1 million lease payments, and $0.8 million of bank principal repayments. Now, let's move to the balance sheet.

Cash and cash equivalents was $4,867.9 million on March 31st, 2026, compared to $4,893.8 million on December 31st, 2025. Other current assets increased from $787 million on December 31st, 2025, to $894.6 million on March 31st, 2026 2026, mainly due to increased value-added tax credit.

Property, plant and equipment was $7,105.9 million on March 31st, 2026, compared to $6,676.4 million on December 31st 1st, 2025, primarily due to capacity expansion in Hua Hong manufacturing. Interest-bearing bank borrowings increased from $3,190.8 million on December 31st, 2025, to $3,897.2 million on March 31st, 2026, primarily due to increased drawdowns of bank borrowings.

Total assets increased from 1 $14,453.8 million on December 31st, 2025, to $14,947.3 million on March 31st, 2026. Total liabilities increased to $5,663 million on March 31st, 2026, from $5,289.5 million on December 31st, 2025.

Debt ratio increased to 37.9% on March 31st, 2026, from 36.6% on December 31st, 2025. Finally, let's take a look at our second quarter outlook of 2026.

We expect revenue to be in the range of $690 million to $700 million, with a projected gross margin of 14% to 16%. This concludes my financial remarks.

We'll now begin the Q&A session. Operator, please assist.

Thank you. Operator?

Operator

Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press star one and one again.

Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments.

Now, we're going to take our first question. It comes from the line of Leping Huang from Huatai Securities.

Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Leping Huang

Thank you for taking my questions. Congratulation for the very strong results.

My first question is about the impact of the memory supercycle. We see the further price hike of the memory in last three months.

Dr. Bai, what's your view on the ripple effect on this trend on the logic foundry industry, especially on your NOR flash business?

Can we expect the further price hike in the memory will drive the ASP and margin expansion in your logic foundry business in the remaining of this year? Thank you.

Peng Bai

Thank you, Leping. Good to hear from you.

Yes, let me take your question on the NOR flash situation. You are right.

The memory is in short supply, starting with the DRAM. DRAM price, as went up probably like 10x.

Then it start spill over into NAND memory. Now, it start spill over a little bit into NOR flash as well.

It's not as much spill over as I would like, but it's definitely we see the demand going up for our NOR flash memory. That will translate into a price increases, but not as significant as a DRAM, not nearly as significant as a DRAM.

We should expect to be 10%, 15% price increases on the NOR flashe. Also, with a tight supply, we won't be able to satisfy all the demand, but would do get the benefit of a higher prices.

Leping Huang

Okay. Thank you.

My my second question is that, can you provide some update on the progress of your Wuxi Fab Phase expansion? I remember you mentioned last time it's I think start already construction in March and moving in October.

These days, we see a very fast expansion of the most of the foundry and the memory company in the world. Do you see any delay of the equipment delivery?

Have you or further is further more today that with the US president visiting China, which is a very important milestone for the US-China relations. Do you think that this will help your the equipment procurement coming in the rest of the year?

Thank you.

Peng Bai

Okay. Yes, let me update you our Wuxi side in terms of the capacity expansion.

As Wuxi side we have two operating fabs already. The third one, as you correctly pointed out, started construction in March.

Before I go to the third fab, which we call 9B, the second fab has been on a capacity ramp-up since last year. It is a Fab 9A.

That capacity ramp-up should complete in Q3 this year, which means that we will reach the full capacity in Q3. There's a obviously the delay in getting all the output with a full capacity, but we should be getting the full output starting probably by end of this year, or beginning of the next year.

Now, the third fab, Fab 9B, we kicked off the construction in March of this year. We are doing all the facility work right now, because the shell is already there for the third fab.

We expect the equipment start to come in in the fourth quarter of this year. To your question about the equipment procurement, we do not see any impact in terms of the export control from the US export control on the equipment procurement for Fab 9B.

That has not been an issue for us. Now, President Trump is in China [laughter] as we speak.

We certainly hope this environment is going to be further relaxed, [laughter] going forward. We will see how is it come out.

Up to this point, even all the press reports notwithstanding over the last couple months, we have not been impacted in terms of getting the equipment we need to buy and also the delivery time.

Leping Huang

Okay. It's good to see.

Final question is that, we see the Hua Hong Group established a advanced packaging subsidiary. Also, the market is very closely watching the next-generation technology like silicon photonics.

For my question is that, how the Hua Hong Group's advanced packaging subsidiary will coordinate with the Hua Hong listco? What's the technology you have on the silicon photonics, and what's your plan on silicon photonics?

Thank you.

Peng Bai

Okay. Let me take on your question one at a time.

What is the advanced packaging? Yes, there is a newly established effort on advanced packaging.

It's under the Hua Hong Group, not the part of the public company, not part of Hua Hong Semiconductor. Of course, we are having a lot of coordination at the Hua Hong Group level in terms of the technology road map, and as well as the capacity planning.

In that regard, certainly are coordinated with the existing Hua Hong Group companies. The advanced packaging is definitely a high-growth area in the industry.

We expect that effort to substantially add to our offering, and also expect to add to our revenue in the future at a group level. Now, the silicon photonics is another area that is growing pretty fast, especially with the AI and related applications.

We are also looking at getting into silicon photonic area. Then there's quite a bit of a planning activities that's ongoing.

Once something get finalized, I expect that will be soon, that we will update you on the detail. Suffice to say that yes, we will get into silicon photonics.

Since this is a growth area, it's adjacent to what we already do, it should have a lot of good synergy with what we already have. We should expect that to be started pretty soon, right?

Leping Huang

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Now, we're going to take our next question.

The next question comes from the line of Tracy Cui from CLSA company. Your line is open.

Please ask your question.

Tracy Cui

Thank you. Thank you, Dr.

Bai, Daniel, and senior management for giving me this opportunity for questions. My first question is regarding your 2Q '26 revenue guidance.

Would you please guide us how much growth may come from the shipment growth and how much is from the ASP increase? Thank you.

Daniel Wang

We're talking about quarter-to-quarter around close to 5%, okay? We're pretty confident with that number.

It's coming in a combination of ASP growth and also volume growth. Thank you.

Tracy Cui

Thanks. Just following up for the wafer price, perhaps how you will expect your wafer price trend throughout this year, and which type of chips you may see maybe a higher chance for the price lift?

Thank you.

Peng Bai

Since we have a diverse portfolio of technology platform, we do see the price increases vary across different platforms. The ones are in higher demand will see a higher price increases.

The ones that demand are somewhat muted, we were probably try to stay where it is, or just with a very minor increases. The net result is on average, I do think we're going to be consistent with the industry average about 10%, plus minus some number here and there.

You have to realize the price increases, it takes time to get implemented, in a sense that even you increase the prices, it's the order from that day forward that see the new prices. That you will take sometime to fully materialize all the increases, to have them fully reflected in the financial results.

During the course of this year, I think we're definitely will be saying about on average Some will increase more, like some we do this mainly based on a market-driven methodology. If you see a lot of demand we can supply, we do tends to increase prices a little bit more.

Some platform might see up to 20%, 25% even. Some are going to be close to where they are, and maybe 5%.

On average I think 10 10% is a reasonable assumption, or 10% to 15% by end of this year, somewhere there.

Tracy Cui

Got it. Thank you, Dr.

Bai. Can I please also have a follow-up question on Fab 9B?

Would you mind remind us how much is our CapEx plan and how much is the designed capacity, and any updated timeline in terms of the CapEx investment and also the ramp-up, and what may be the process node and the type of chips platforms? Thank you.

Peng Bai

I think the Fab 9B, the overall project, I think we're going to be putting down CapEx-wise about $60 billion, maybe right around there. It would be 60 We actually originally said 69.

We will try to

Daniel Wang

$6 $6

Peng Bai

$6 billion, not 60. [laughter] $60.

$6 billion, okay? Let's take off one zero there.

Originally we think it's 6 point something, but we will try to control it to be about $6 billion overall investment. That will be spent this year and next, pretty much.

It will start equipment start coming towards the end of this year. We are talking about it will start to produce output in 2027.

Probably going to take a year and a half to 2 years to get all the capacity in place. You are talking about in 2028 that Fab 9B will be at the full capacity.

That's the rough schedule I'm giving you.

Tracy Cui

What might be the process node or type of chips, any color that you may able to share? Thank you.

Peng Bai

It will be focusing on specialty technologies. It will be a range of nodes, but the bulk will be 40 nanometer.

So, 40 nanometer plus minus something.

Tracy Cui

Sure. Thank you, Dr.

Bai, and thank you, Daniel. That's all for me, and I will go back to the queue.

Thank you.

Daniel Wang

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Now, we're going to take our next question.

The next question comes from the line of Ziyuan Wang from CITIC. Your line is open.

Please ask your question.

Ziyuan Wang

Thank you for taking my questions. This is Wang from CITIC Securities.

My first question is, I'm wondering how was the demand trend in analog and power applications over the past quarters. Is there any further plan for the wafer price to increase on Q2?

Have there been any price increase in the materials, such as silicon wafers? Thank you.

Yeah.

Peng Bai

The analog area, our main product is power management ICs. We do see strong demand there.

That's mostly related to AI and AI-related build-out, like the server boxes. They need a lot of power management chips.

That's partially offset by some of the consumer weakness, because of the DRAM increases. We do see memory price increases has a small depressing effect on consumer segment.

Overall, it's a positive story for us, because we obviously have products in both AI-related field as well as consumer. On average, AI-related stronger demand at least more than compensate for the small weaknesses in consumer.

In that regard, I think the PMIC area is a good example where you have one part of the market going strong, another part is a little bit muted. Overall, still a positive demand-increasing story for us.

Yes, you will see price increases in this particular platform, a reasonable price increases here. In terms of the supply chain, probably mostly because of the war and some of the disruption that it causes, we do see some raw material, the prices go up.

It's not across the board. Across the board, it's not a very significant factor yet.

There's a few item that prices do go up quite high. We're managing that, and those are manageable.

I do not expect that it will have a big overall impact. Yes, mostly because of the war in the Middle East that is causing some supply chain disruption, in particular, all the oil-related products, some of the item, the prices spike a little bit.

A very few item. In aggregate, it doesn't have an average impact much.

All right. Thank you.

Ziyuan Wang

Got it. Thank you, Dr.

Bai. My second question is, does our company have any plan or investments on the compound semiconductor, such as the gallium arsenide, or silicon carbide, or even on indium phosphide?

That's my second question.

Peng Bai

Thank you for asking. The answer is yes.

We have started effort in gallium nitride. We already have TD activity going on, we will get into gallium nitride, and as well as silicon carbide, the compound semiconductor.

Those two that complement our silicon-based power devices that we have decided to get into. The way we're getting into might be a little bit different.

Like a silicon carbide, we might have a joint venture with some existing joint venture in terms of the capital management. In gallium nitride, we might seek a partner when we're getting into the volume manufacturing phase.

That part is still being kind of a planned, or is not finalized. The answer to your question, yes, we will get into gallium nitride.

We are getting into gallium nitride and silicon carbide effort, because we have a large silicon-based power device capacity, and we also a large base of customer. They are also asking us to get into the compound semiconductor to complement our existing silicon-based power devices.

Indium phosphide, no, we're not. Got it.

Ziyuan Wang

Okay. All right.

Sorry. Go on, please.

Peng Bai

Xiang, have you I can't hear you.

Operator

Oh, my apologies. Please continue.

Peng Bai

We don't hear anybody speaking online.

Daniel Wang

Go to the next.

Operator

Yes, of course.

Ziyuan Wang

Now, we'll That's all my questions. Thank you.

Very clear.

Operator

Thank you, Xiang. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad.

Now, we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Timothy Wang from Oriental Asset Management.

Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Timothy Wang

Hello, Dr. Bai.

Hello, Daniel. He is analyst from Oriental Asset Management.

My name is Timothy Wang. My first question would be I would like to confirm whether we are acquiring 7nm or below to our portfolio through the acquisition of Huali Micro, as some news reports suggest.

Thank you. This is my first question.

Peng Bai

Sorry, did you get the question?

Daniel Wang

Can you repeat the question again, or you have not

Timothy Wang

Yes. Okay.

I would like to confirm whether we are acquiring 7nm or below to our portfolio through the acquisition of Huali Micro, as some reports suggested. Thank you.

Peng Bai

A couple of things. One is our Q1 results [laughter] does not include Huali Micro.

That's still outside the Hua Hong Semiconductor because it has not complete the acquisition. Second, what are we acquiring for Huali Micro is basically what we call Fab 5 asset.

The Fab 5 asset and business, those are based on 55nm and 40nm IC products. That's what we are acquiring.

Timothy Wang

Yes. Actually, I didn't believe such reports.

Thank you for your clarification. My second part of my question is, would you mind giving us some color on the explosion of CPO, silicon photonics, optics?

How would these trends benefit us?

Peng Bai

I think right now from technical standpoint of view, a lot of high-compute platform, the interconnect become a bottleneck. Therefore, people are looking for ways to speed up the interconnect.

Silicon photonics is one way. Now, there's some detail there that depend on the whether you're talking about the stack-to-stack, like a box-to-box communication, or some chip-to-chip.

You actually require slightly different silicon photonic technology. That's the area that would require silicon photonics type of product.

This is consistent with now AI is driving a lot of the market growth. If you believe in the thesis that AI is going to drive a lot of growth, then you would say that there's going to be more demand for silicon photonics-related products, because AI obviously at a system level is a high-compute stuff.

From Hua Hong standpoint of view, although silicon photonic is a new technology for us, It's also adjacent technology for us. It's not too different, too far away from what we already doing.

We're already doing a lot of CIS, which require a lot of backside processing, also getting into advanced packaging area. There's quite a bit of synergy from technology standpoint of view.

That's why we think there's a good area for us to get into, because there's going to be market demand, and it's also play into kind of our strengths or our adjacent area of growth. Thank you.

Timothy Wang

Thank you. Thank you very much, and congratulations for all the progress.

Daniel Wang

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Now, we're going to take our next question.

The question comes from the line of Jiang Kai from Orient Securities. Your line is open.

Please ask your question.

Jiang Kai

Hi, Dr. Bai and Mr.

Wang. My first question is about the memory price.

How do you see the memory price in the next a few quarters? [laughter]

Peng Bai

Well, the price is a sensitive topic, and in the in the in the end, the price will be set by supply-demand balance. As long as the we continue to have short supply, then we have a little bit of opportunity to inch up the prices.

We actually will stop price increases when that supply-demand balance is reached. At this point, in starting this year, we start to see tightness of the supply, and we continue to see that.

We are going through one round of price increases. We have gone through one round of prices increases.

That's not fully reflected in in It will take a little bit of time to to see how it's impacting the order and how is it impacting the overall market. We will be watching that, and and then decide whether the balance is reached or if it's not reached that we may inch up a little bit more.

I'm being [laughter] frank and open about this one. If the the price the the demand is is supply-demand is more or less at the at a good good balance, we probably going to pause, or going to keep stop increasing prices.

As I said, that for the year, we expect on average I said earlier, 10 10%, maybe if we're lucky will be 15%, 10% to 15%. Memory is one of the platforms that increases probably will be above the average.

Jiang Kai

Thank you, Dr. Bai.

My second question is about the AI server opportunity. As we know, we already are making some analog for AI server.

Also, we can see a power discrete, the usage are also increasing in AI server. From our point, how do we see the opportunity for us?

You maybe just now, you also mentioned like silicon photonics. Maybe combine all these together, how do we see the opportunity?

Peng Bai

Okay. The power devices overall market is actually increasing, because of all the AI boxes need power devices, plus some of the new like robotics, or the industrial demand is also increasing the demand for power devices.

The issue there probably is not so much overall market demand. We do see that part is reasonably healthy.

The issue is probably that supply also increases quite fast, especially the compound semiconductor, like I said earlier, silicon carbide start to contribute significant portion to power devices. That here, you have a situation where the supply-demand balance is not that off.

Therefore, for us to win business, it's a competitive market. You have to compete with our competitors.

Now, we do have a good silicon-based power device technology. We have that in that area.

I think the part we need to do more is to get the compound semiconductor as part of offering. That's why earlier I said we are getting into silicon carbide and gallium nitride, the compound semiconductor, so that we can, first, provide a more complete solution to our customers, and also give our customer more choices, more flexibility in terms of coming up with a optimal combination of the power devices to support increasing demand.

That's the situation I see. Silicon photonics is a different story.

That is we're starting from scratch. That is a nascent, a new development that is getting more and more important.

I think that we don't have a silicon photonics offering right now. For us, anything we get there will be a net addition to our business.

Jiang Kai

Thank you, Dr. Bai.

Operator

Thank you. Now, we're going to take our next question.

The question comes from the line of Charlie Chan from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Please ask your question.

Charlie Chan

Hi, Dr. Bai and Daniel.

Thanks for taking my question. I actually have a two question.

One is about your PMIC capacity expansion. I'm not sure if it's the right understanding, but could it be a BCD process?

Do you think you can extend that capacity given demand is so strong, and also customers are willing to pay higher price? If they cannot get a capacity from your fab, where they can go to get the sufficient supply?

Peng Bai

The power management product, it does use BCD technology platform. You're correct.

That's the technology platform we're talking about, BCD. That's the number one.

Number two, we are expanding the BCD capacity. That is already one of the highest capacity platform we already have, but we are expanding as we speak in both Wuxi as well as maybe in Huali Micro that we are about to acquire.

We will get the higher capacity, because we're not meeting the customer needs. Third, you are correct that BCD area, it's a competitive marketplace.

There's many players there, but we have been one of the biggest players in China. Partly because we think we have a good technology advantage, and we also have some very valuable strategic customer that work with us.

We think we can increase the capacity and still be able to get the good price on them. That's why we are doing capacity expansion.

This is also area that we are focusing on, in terms of technology development, to try to get next generation faster so that we keep that technology edge for us.

Charlie Chan

Got it. Thanks, Dr.

Bai. My second part of this question is so, I also cover some Taiwanese foundry, for example, UMC, Vanguard, if I may call those are your industry peers.

It seems like their first-quarter, second-quarter wafer shipment sort of outgrow. I think 1Q they're growing single digits, 2Q higher single digit Q-on-Q.

I'm not sure after your capacity expansion, do you feel like you can win back some customers, no matter consumer side or those non-China customers, no matter US customers or Taiwan customers, back to your fab for PMIC production?

Peng Bai

Our PMIC business has grown in Q1. If we had more capacity, we probably could have done better.

As our new capacity come online, we do think that we can keep growing that part of business. We already have customer from overseas, from US and Europe, for that matter, because for European customer, they have this in China for China strategy that we do benefit from.

The US company, mostly because of their business growing very fast, they need more supply. In that sense, that we think BCD area or PMIC area, it is one area that is benefiting from the AI and AI-related growth.

Also all the other like the car also need a PMIC, and robotics overall. From end-market standpoint, the only place we see some weakness is in the consumer segment.

Now, we do see that. The hope is that the area that has been growing, keep on growing, like [laughter] AI and robotics and the cars, auto.

The consumer maybe will come back, because they can't keep on pushing out the new model forever, they have to also get some of the growth, or stop the decrease a little bit. That's the overall picture I see.

Charlie Chan

Great, thanks. My second question is some clarification on your comments.

In your prepared remarks, you sort of took about hopefully some relaxation of the export control on equipment. I think your Fab 9, right, as you just described, is more like a 40nm.

If that the case, why there is a kind of export control? Or you were referring to Huali's Fab 8?

Can you clarify your previous comment about the equipment restriction?

Peng Bai

I was not talking about Huali. I was talking about just Hua Hong.

You are correct. When I also said we have not been impacted in terms of the by the export control in terms of what the equipment we really need to buy.

When I say if the restriction is more relaxed, in general, we will get the more choices. It's always good to have more choices.

[laughter] So that I might be able to have a little bit more optimal combination of the tools. It's not an

Charlie Chan

issue

Peng Bai

if we can't, okay.

Charlie Chan

Oh, I see. I see.

It's kind of nice

Peng Bai

Nice, yes, yes.

Charlie Chan

Okay. Nice to have.

Even is a status quo, it doesn't change your expansion for Fab 9. Is that right way to think about this?

Peng Bai

That's correct.

Charlie Chan

Cool. Lastly, I think one of the previous callers asked about some potential new business, right?

I think for global AI semi supply chain, I think they are lots of interesting component. For example, interposer, bridge die, silicon capacitors, there's a PIC.

Do you have any demand for those? I think the previous question was about CPO-related, but I wanted to ask about all those kind of CoWoS or 2.5D packaging-related components, no matter silicon capacitor, interposer, bridge die, or PIC.

Do you have any demand for those components?

Peng Bai

Good question. We do see demand for high-density capacitor.

We are having a effort there to do the capacitors, deep trench or otherwise. Those high-density capacitors.

That it looks like it's been there for a while now, that we should start to see some revenue coming. Interposer.

Charlie Chan

Interposer

Peng Bai

is also something that we are very open to it. I think that we are exploring some option there.

That's still in the early stages. That probably going to go with when we have our advanced packaging coming online.

The interposer will also become significant part of that overall packaging effort.

Charlie Chan

Great. Thanks for your answers.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that's all the time we have for questions.

I will now hand back to Mr. Daniel Wang for closing remarks.

Daniel Wang

Thank you very much for joining us today. You guys had a lot of wonderful questions.

All these questions has been very, very helpful. We look forward to speaking with you again and perhaps seeing you in the next quarter.

Thank you very much. Dr.

Bai.

Peng Bai

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.

You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.