Q3 '25 Packaging/Test Earnings: Hit Or Miss?
ASE posts results, sees strong demand; K&S CEO to retire; Teradyne's results; JCET's strong quarter; Besi's weak quarter
By Mark LaPedus
IC packaging and test are important parts of the semiconductor industry. Here’s the latest financial results from leading OSATs and equipment makers:
ASE
Taiwan’s ASE, a provider of semiconductor assembly and testing services, reported net revenues of NT$168,569 million (US$5.48 billion) for the third quarter of 2025, up 5.3% year-over-year and up 11.8% sequentially.
Net income attributable to shareholders of the parent for the quarter totaled NT$10,870 million (US$354 million), up 12% year-over-year and up 45% sequentially.
Net revenues from packaging operations, testing operations, EMS operations, and others represented approximately 47%, 11%, 41%, and 1% of the total net revenues for the quarter, respectively.
During the quarter, ASE’s packaging and testing utilization rate was in the high-70% range. ASE was fully loaded in leading-edge advanced packaging and traditional advanced packaging capacity. Wirebond utilization also showed some improvement.
In 2024, ASE’s capital expenditures were roughly $1.8 billion. In 2025, ASE’s CapEx is just over $3 billion. But ASE is scrambling to meet demand, prompting them to add more capacity. In 2025, ASE’s capital expenditures could top $6 billion, according to the Taipei Times.
During a conference call, ASE provided the following details about the quarter and what’s next:
ASE’s outlook
“On consolidated level, in NT dollar terms, our consolidated fourth quarter revenue should grow by 1% to 2% quarter-over-quarter,” said Joseph Tung, CFO of ASE. “For ATM (assembly and test manufacturing), in NT dollar terms, our ATM fourth quarter revenue should grow by 3% to 5%. For EMS, in NT dollar terms, our EMS fourth quarter revenue should stay flat or decline slightly quarter over quarter.
“For ATM, we’re seeing better than expected momentum of mainstream business given the continuing recovery of the general market. While on leading-edge revenue, we are on track to reach the US$1.6B mark as planned. Altogether, we expect ATM 2025 full-year revenue to exceed our target and grow over 20% year-over-year in US dollar terms,” Tung said.
“As for machinery CapEx, we expect to further increase our full-year CapEx by another few hundred million US dollars to meet customers’ requests and to support continuing business momentum into 2026. The increase is largely for wafer probing for both AI and non-AI chips, as well as for general capacity ramp and some new initiatives for year 2026,” he said.
Plans to build a U.S.-based plant
“We don’t have anything new to report,” Tung said. “We are currently still engaging in discussion with our customers and we’re evaluating different opportunities. But no decision is made at this point, but whatever decision we will eventually make, it will have to make economical sense for us.”
Test business
“Our test business growth is going to be twice the packaging revenue growth, and we will continue to make large investments into our test capacity. But our resources are also limited. We don’t have unlimited resources to try to cover everything in the market. So right now, the main focus for our investment in test is really on the wafer probing. And I think we will continue to on this effort for the time to come. And in terms of final test, I think we are making the necessary investment at this point to build up the capacity. And we’re expecting to have meaningful revenue being generated in the later part of next year when we start serving the next generation AI chips,” Tung said.
Demand for mainstream packaging
“We’re seeing a better than expected performance, and I think that’s a result of the general market recovery. And also in some part of the different sectors, we are also seeing ourselves gaining share, particularly if we look at different sectors. I think communication, and, of course, PC or computing is recovering better than the others, like automotive and industrial. But nonetheless, I think the recovery is very obvious at this point. Automotive is kind of moving in a slower pace than the other three sectors. But on that, we actually posted very, very good growth in our automotive business. I think for ATM this year, we’re going to see over 20% growth in this part of the business. I think that’s a largely result of continuing gaining market share in this space,” Tung said.
K&S
Kulicke and Soffa (K&S), a supplier of assembly equipment, will issue its fourth fiscal quarter 2025 financial results on Nov. 19.
On Oct. 28, K&S announced that Fusen Chen has agreed to retire from his position as president and CEO, and as a member of the board, effective Dec. 1, 2025, due to health reasons.
Following the effective date, Chen will serve as an advisor to the board for a 12-month period. The board has initiated a process to identify the company’s next permanent CEO. The search will include internal and external candidates.
Effective immediately, the board has appointed Lester Wong, executive vice president of finance and IT and chief financial officer, as the company’s interim CEO. Wong will also continue in his existing roles during this transitional period.
Teradyne
Teradyne, a supplier of ATE, reported revenue of $769 million for the third quarter of 2025, up 18% from the previous quarter and up 4% from the like period a year ago. GAAP net income for the third quarter of 2025 was $119.6 million, compared to $78.4 million in the previous quarter and $145.6 million in the like period a year ago.
Teradyne reported $606 million in sales for its semiconductor test unit, $88 million in product test, and $75 million in robotics.
“Our Semiconductor Test Group delivered third quarter sales that exceeded expectations, driving company sales and profit to the high end of our Q3 guidance range,” said Teradyne CEO Greg Smith. “Growth was driven primarily by system-on-a-chip (SOC) solutions for artificial intelligence applications and strong performance in memory. As we look ahead to Q4, AI-related test demand remains robust across compute, networking and memory segments. Q4’25 sales are expected to increase 25% sequentially and 27% from Q4’24.”
Guidance for the fourth quarter of 2025 is revenue of $920 million to $1 billion, with GAAP net income of $1.12 to $1.39 per diluted share and non-GAAP net income of $1.20 to $1.46 per diluted share.
JCET
JCET, China’s largest OSAT, released its financial results for the third quarter of 2025. For the quarter, JCET reported revenue of RMB 10.06 billion (US$1.41 billion), up 8.6% quarter-on-quarter, marking the highest third-quarter revenue in the company’s history. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 480 million (US$67.39 million), an increase of 80.6% from the previous quarter.
Revenue from computing electronics, industrial and medical electronics, and automotive electronics rose by 69.5%, 40.7% and 31.3%, respectively. “Capacity utilization rose steadily from Q1 to Q3, reaching near-full levels across key product lines, including wafer-level packaging, power device packaging, and power management chip packaging,” according to JCET.
The company also said that it has made progress in several areas, including co-packaged optics (CPO), glass substrates, large-format fcBGA packaging, and high-density system-in-package (SiP) solutions.
For example, in the CPO arena, JCET offers multiple packaging integration solutions for optical engines and flexible layout options for photonic integrated chips (PICs) and electronic integrated chips (EICs).
Owen Jin, vice president of the JCET Group and general manager of the AI & Smart Industry Business Unit, stated: “The transition from pluggable optical modules to highly integrated CPO devices brings significant system performance improvements and drives value reconstruction across the industry chain. JCET has already partnered with multiple customers in optical engine packaging integration, thermal management, and reliability verification. Moving forward, we will continue to invest in R&D for advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration technologies, promote collaborative innovation across the industry chain, and further strengthen our strategic position in the global semiconductor back-end manufacturing industry.”
Besi
BE Semiconductor Industries (Besi), a manufacturer of assembly equipment for the semiconductor industry, reported its results for the third quarter ended Sept. 30.
For the quarter, revenue was €132.7 million (US$154.1 million), down 10.4% from the previous quarter and down 15.3% from the like period a year ago. Revenue was at the midpoint of the company’s guidance. Net income was €25.3 million (US$29.4 million), down 21.2% from the previous quarter and down 45.9% from a year ago.
The company attributed the results to continued weakness in the mainstream assembly markets, particularly for mobile and automotive applications, and lower hybrid bonding revenue.
Going forward, revenue is expected to increase by 15% to 25% in the fourth quarter.
“Besi reported Q3-25 revenue and operating results within prior guidance in an assembly equipment market showing early signs of recovery,” said Richard W. Blickman, president and chief executive of Besi, based in the Netherlands. “The improved order outlook this quarter was principally due to a broad-based increase in die attach bookings by Asian subcontractors for 2.5D data center applications and renewed capacity purchases by leading photonics customers. We also noticed improvement in more mainstream electronics and automotive applications. A push out to Q4-25 of certain anticipated hybrid bonding bookings limited even stronger order development during the quarter. Progress on our wafer level assembly activities continued with new customers/orders received for both Besi’s hybrid bonding and TC Next systems in Q3-25.”