iST (TWSE:3289) today (Apr 20, 2018) announced its self- clearing financial statement of Q1 2018 on a consolidated basis.

Revenues for Q1 2018 totaled approximately NT$ 740 million, a decrease of 7.71% QoQ and increased 23.40% YoY.

Gross profit in Q1 2018 was about NT$ 163 million, a decrease of 27.37% QoQ and 3.08% YoY respectively.

Profit after tax attributable to the parent company for Q1 was approximate NT$ 21 million, a decrease of 60.36% QoQ and 36.26% YoY respectively.

EPS for Q1 was approximately NT$0.33, which decreased 61.18% QoQ and 40.00% YoY respectively.

Despite of the less working days coincided with the Lunar New Year holiday, the revenues of Q1 have only declined 7.71% compared to the record-setting revenues in Q4 2017 (QoQ), and has greatly grew 23.40% compared to the revenues of Q1 2017 (YoY), due to the increasing verification case-in quantity required by the big international makers. iST said.

iST pointed, as the result of seasonal quiet sales in Q1 and the cost of iST s expansion, the EPS for Q1 2018 was approximately NT$0.33, showed a decline in YoY and QoQ. However, the revenues in Q2 2018 are expected to step up and reach the economics of scale resulting from the increasing the case-in quantity for verification services of Automotive Electronics, Signal Integrity and Advanced Process in Semiconductor Manufacturing and other services required by the international customers began in Q2.

iST further pointed specially on the verification demand of Automotive Electronics, IoT and Advanced Process in Semiconductor Manufacturing.

In Automotive Electronics field, along with the AEC-Q104 specification released by the Automotive Electronics Council (AEC) last month, defining the testing items of Board Level Reliability (BLR). iST has received relevant inquiries from many international chip manufacturers based on its rich experiences on BLR . This expects to boost iST s future revenues on Automotive electronics verification service.

As for the verification services on IoT, iST has opened a comprehensive cooperation with UL and DEKRA successively in Q1 on the high speed signal transmission testing and certification services including HDMI MHL DisplayPort USB, as well as the IoT services, Wi-Fi. The benefit of cooperation is expected to show in the near future.

In addition, with the expanding purchase scale of semiconductor equipment resulting from the fierce competition between global makers, the Material analysis business of iST is also expected to increase continuously.