U.S. factory RubiconQ2 profit chain down 20%

China LED Reuters] the United States sapphire substrate supplier LED technology company (Rubicon Technology, Inc.), the main production of sapphire substrates and products of the semiconductor, optical and optical industries. The day before Rubicon announced second quarter earnings, and also announced the signing of an agreement with the other resource sharing between the sapphire lapping factory, in order to speed up the lower cost of sapphire.

Rubicon second quarter earnings slump

Due to falling demand and sapphire prices, the second quarter profit of $7 million 100 thousand (equivalent to about RMB 44 million 90 thousand yuan), compared with the previous quarter of $8 million 900 thousand (equivalent to about RMB 55 million 270 thousand yuan) fell by 20.22%. Rubicon put forward a series of factors affecting earnings, including the increase in the stock of television and LED lamps market off-season, are likely to be the reason for the weak demand for blue this season.

Therefore, the market capacity and price are affected by poor demand and poor performance. However, the layout of the sapphire for the previous quarter shipments two times, revenues of $900 thousand (equivalent to about RMB 5 million 590 thousand yuan). The company forecast demand next year will continue to increase the patterned sapphire, and has recently received a six inch patterned sapphire orders up to $9 million, is expected to start from October 2015, 12 months after delivery.

Under pressure to continue to fall, the second quarter loss of $0.33 per share, similar to the previous quarter loss of $0.32.

Cooperative resource sharing agreement with sapphire grinding mill

Rubicon also announced that it has been working with the industry sapphire grinding mill, signed a resource sharing agreement. Under this agreement, Rubicon will enjoy a competitive 4 inch sapphire grinding price, while the mill will be able to obtain Rubicon in Malaysia, the spare cutting and grinding capacity.

Rubicon will continue to use the existing 6 inch sapphire wafer grinding process, and they hope to part of the production capacity of the 4 inch sapphire wafer moved to a 6 inch wafer, and to achieve the effect of reducing costs.

Rubicon president and CEO Bill Wei Siman said: "in the current market decline, we have focused on a number of different targets: actively purchase patterned sapphire and target in high yield of optical applications, reduce the production cost and the development of new products, so far, we have won. We focus on the sale of patterned sapphire, and are confident that the product will continue to increase profits, but it is necessary to reduce the cost of cutting and grinding to achieve this vision. We believe that this resource sharing agreement will enable us to do more than our own R & D technology to reduce costs more quickly, especially in the 4 inch patterned sapphire cost consideration is even more so. "

Outlook for the third quarter of 2015

Rubicon hopes that the market will continue to be optimistic in the third quarter. Patterned sapphire sales should rise, however, 2 inch and 4 inch wafer demand is limited, so the revenue in the third quarter is expected to be similar to or slightly lower than the second quarter. Will continue to grow in the fourth quarter of this year, and Rubicon is confident that the demand for 2 inch and Sapphire Wafers should be seen in the fourth quarter. Process changes due to resource sharing will be adjusted in the coming months. The size and timing of price cuts will be better understood after the changes are implemented. In the third quarter, the loss per share should be similar to or higher than the second quarter.

Rubicon also said that some raw materials and sapphire crystal culture will be temporarily reduced. Ge Fei, chief financial officer at DELL Rubicon, said: "reducing raw material and crystal stocks will accelerate cash flow in the short term, and we will retain sufficient manpower, the market will be able to respond immediately to restore the original capacity. "(Chinese LED net Emma Chang)

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