AEM Holdings has reported earnings of just $2.4 million for 1QFY2024, down 85% y-o-y.
Revenue dropped by 38.3% to $94.2 million and net margins too plunged by 7.7 percentage points to 2.5%.
According to AEM, the weaker bottom line was also caused by a restructuring charge of $2.1 million.
Revenue, when compared to the preceding Q4FY2023, was flat, which AEM says it due to slower than expected recovery of its key customer.
The build-up of inventory in the life science and industrial sectors has hurt revenue too, the company says.
AEM says as a result of its continuous efforts in R&D, it has won two significant high-volume production wins for its test solutions in the high performance compute and AI space.
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“The industry is at the cusp of an AI-driven revolution, and our recent program wins are a testament to the strength of our Test 2.0 solutions, and the role our test vision will play in addressing the future needs of the devices powering the next technological wave of growth," says CEO Chandran Nair.
AEM warns that despite the growth prospects, the semiconductor industry as a whole is still seeing overcapacity and end market "demand uncertainty".
As such, recovery has been uneven.
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"Given that the visibility into the second half of the year remains limited, we expect any uptick in growth to occur only in 2025.
"So while the pace of the rebound is expected to be gradual and measured, the future years looks promising with the proliferation of AI capabilities at the edge," says AEM.
AEM shares closed May 8 at $2.32, up 0.43% for the day; down 33.3% year to date.
