Better showing in 3Q but not quite enough. As guided by management, Unisem's 3QFY12 revenue was flat q-o-q (-2% y-o-y). At the bottom-line level, however, the company returned to the black after marking three consecutive quarters of losses, fuelled by: (i) lower opex, (ii) forex gains, and (iii) lower depreciation charges. These lifted profit margins during the quarter under review. Despite that, the company's 9MFY12 core net profit missed our and consensus expectations by 10%-20%.

Mediocre showing from Asia. On a segmental basis, revenue contribution from Asia was flat q-o-q and y-o-y whereas Europe continued to decline even from a low base. Revenue from the US, however, was somewhat encouraging, surging by 70% q-o-q (+44% y-o-y) to RM4.4m. That said, this segment ' whose contribution is historically small - only accounted for 1.6% of total revenue in 3Q.

4Q outlook still one of gloom. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), worldwide semiconductor sales in September only ticked up by 2% m-o-m to USD24.8bn, after trending flat in the preceding three months. Sales in regions like the Americas and Asia Pacific rebounded by 1%-6% m-o-m while Europe and Japan experienced stagnant growth. On a y-o-y basis, monthly sales were down 2%-11% across all continents while cumulatively, overall global sales contracted by 4.6% y-o-y. Furthermore, the September book-to-bill ratio also stayed below parity at 0.81x.

FV under review. In view of the murky outlook, we are putting our recommendation an FV under review pending the company's briefing for analysts today. We think that th company's performance in 4Q ' which is typically the strongest quarter for worldwide semiconductor sales ' may be marred by feeble growth as the outlook for the global industry remains challenging. Even guidance from both international upstream and downstream players suggest a weaker quarter ahead (please see Table 1).

Source: OSK