Ace Tech’s EMS project delayed to 2021

Ace Technologies’ order for electronics manufacturing service (EMS) from a European telecom equipment maker has been delayed to next year, TheElec has learned.

The South Korean company was expected be named in September and starting producing the kits to its customers within the year.

Ace Technologies is expected to post an annual loss this year. The firm posted 159.1 billion won in sales and 38.8 billion in operating loss up to the third quarter of 2020. Last year, its sales was 378.6 billion won and it posted operating income of 2.7 billion won.

The EMS project that has been delayed to next year is thought to be worth 700 billion won a year.

Ace is competing with other EMS vendors in the US such as Jabil and Flextronics. 

The Korean company is planning to use its factory in Vietnam for the order. The factory, which was completed earlier this year, has tripled the company’s production capacity for radio systems and antenna filter units.

But actual production volume increase has been minimal due to the delay in 5G roll out by telcos due to the effect of COVID-19 pandemic.

Ace supplies its goods to Ericsson and Samsung Electronics.

According to Dell’Oro Group, in the third quarter this year, Ericsson was the largest vendor of telecom equipment with 32% market share, followed by Huawei’s 30.5%. 

Samsung Electronics had a share of 4.6%. In 5G however, the Korean firm has a slightly higher share of 6.4%. The company has started production for equipment that it will supply to US telco Verizon has part of their 7.9 trillion won supply deal signed in September.

Ace and compatriot KMW are major Korean filter makers. Both companies also produce antenna.

Antenna filter unit combines antenna and filter and are used in 5G equipment. In 4G, antenna and filter were separate. 

Gigalane and RFTech, which are supplying antenna filter unit to Samsung Network, are producing their own antenna but procuring filters from other vendors.