NOVEMBERASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK8NEWSROOMSMIC PROJECTS 2025 REVENUE TO EXCEED $9B AMID CHIP DEMAND SURGESMIC, the leading chip foundry in China, is expecting its total revenue for 2025 to go beyond $9 billion, mainly thanks to strong semiconductor demand and a tight foundry capacity situation worldwide.SMIC recorded a revenue of $2.4 billion in Q3, which is 7.8 percent higher sequentially, and with a 22 percent gross margin. The quarterly gross profit increased by 17.7 percent year-over-year to $522.8 million, while the net profit attributable to the company surged by 28.9 percent to $191.8 million.The company anticipates that the revenue in the fourth quarter will be at the same level as the third quarter or will increase by up to 2 percent q-o-q. The gross margins are expected to be between 18 percent and 20 percent.Key highlights· SMIC forecasts 2025 revenue above S$9 billion driven by strong chip demand.· Q3 revenue hit US$2.4 billion with 95.8 percent utilisation and 22 percent gross margin.· SMIC's 7nm capacity and yields face constraints amid HBM shortages and rising demand.SMIC is the only foundry in mainland China that makes 7-nanometre-grade chips; however, its yields--thought to be 60­70 percent with DUV multiple-patterning--are far behind those of TSMC's early 76 percent EUV-based 7nm yields.The analysts point out that the limited supply of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) may be the main reason for the output of advanced processors to be low in 2025, even though the die capacity is available.The industry outlook points to tighter mature-node (28nm and above) availability as a result of Huawei taking a large portion of SMIC's 7nm capacity.In contrast, global rivals like United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) are increasing their 22nm and 28nm capacity and thus, are opening new possibilities for fabless chip designers targeting automotive, IoT, and power management segments. ISRAELI CYBER FIRM VEGA TARGETS $400M FUNDING ROUNDVega is a fast-growing cybersecurity startup in Israel. The company is planning to raise a funding round that will be worth several tens of millions of dollars and, as a result, Vega's valuation will exceed $400 million. This step signals a strong trust from investors in the viral technology and fast growth of the startup in less than two years.The startup Vega was founded by Shay Sandler and Eli Rozen, both are ex-Unit 8200 intelligence arm graduates, and in 2024 they are also ex-executives of the performance optimization firm Granulate. Within a short period, the company has been able to differentiate itself among the cyber sector by becoming the fastest-scaling startup in the cybersecurity sector.Key Highlights· Vega prepares a new funding round valuing the cybersecurity startup at over $400 million.· The company has raised $65 million across seed and Series A rounds within the past year.· Vega's in-place security data analysis offers a modern alternative to traditional SIEM platforms.Vega's innovative solution centers on the direct security data source wherein security data is analyzed right at the source. In this way, Vega offers a more modern alternative to traditional SIEM systems that require transferring vast amounts of information into centralized storage.This financing round will be Vega's third round within the last 12 months, and it follows a total seed and Series a funding of $65 million which was led by Accel, and the most recent investment was made two months ago. Besides, investors in the rounds were Cyberstarts, Redpoint Ventures, and CRV.The speed at which the investments have been happening is a clear indicator of the market's demand for advanced security solutions that can address the challenges brought by the huge volume of data that enterprises have to deal with today in terms of costs and data management.
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