Acer Synergy Tech (AST), an affiliate of the Acer Group that focuses on providing system integration services, is set to be listed on Taiwan's over-the-counter market by year-end 2020, and is optimistic about its operation in 2021, according to company chairman Maverick Shih.

Currently, AST has an over 70% market share in the semiconductor-related field where its presence will expand further in 2021 thanks to brisk development of the semiconductor industry and rising demand from enterprises for digital transformation, Shih noted.

AST president KS Han pointed out that in addition to the semiconductor sector, the company also has clients from the manufacturing, financial, medical care, government and education sectors.

The company has around 10-15% of its revenues contributed by bank clients and is seeing more orders from Taiwanese IT firms returning in the wake of the US-China trade tensions, Han said.

AST is currently also eyeing the business opportunities from the traditional industries in central Taiwan as many of them see order visibility of six months to one year, and have strong demand for IT and cloud computing services, Han noted.

Outside of Taiwan, AST has been keen on expanding its service coverage to China and North America and is able to provide comprehensive services to clients there with the assistance and connection from its parent company, Shih said.

As one of AST's major wafer foundry clients is set to establish a fab in the US, Shih pointed out that AST has already begun pushing to land orders from the client via Acer US.

AST reported consolidated revenues of NT$889 million (US$30.9 million) and NT$1.07 billion, and gross margin of 10.9% and 12.8% for 2018 and 2019, respectively. For the first three quarter of 2020, AST generated a total of NT$745 million in consolidated revenues with gross margin at 14.5%, said Han, adding that the company is looking to further boost its gross margin by increasing the revenue contribution from the solution business.

AST chairman Maverick Shih (center) and president KS Han (left)
Photo: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, November 2020