Nextin expects double revenue from China this year

Fab equipment maker Nextin expects its revenue from China to double this year compared to 2021, its CEO told TheElec.

China was accounting for around 70% of the company’s revenue this year, Nextin CEO Tae Hoon Park said in an interview. The company is seeing its revenue from China double this year, Park added.

The fab equipment maker offers wafer inspection equipment used to find defects. The optical inspection equipment uses dark field technology.

The most dominant company in the sector is KLA while Nextin is a relative newcomer.

The South Korean company was the first local company to manufacture optical inspection equipment on its own.

The recorded an operating margin rate of 51.6% during the third quarter, in which it recorded revenue of 42.3 billion won and operating profit of 23.4 billion won, an increase of 180% and 230% from the previous year.

The company is also benefiting from US’s recent restrictions on China purchasing fab equipment.

The company recently signed deals to supply its Aegis-II equipment to two Chinese chipmakers, which includes CXMT.

The deal’s combined worth is around 20 billion won. CSMT is expanding fast in China’s memory market with its DRAM.

The increased sales in China helped Nextin accumulated orders worth 120 billion won at the current time.

However, Park also warned that the outlook for the global chip market next year remained negative and the company was preparing in various ways for this.

US sanctions against China also offered it short-term gains but Nextin plans to look at the situation with the mid- to long-term perspective, he added.

Nextin is also preparing new inspection equipment Iris aimed at inspecting the lower parts of 3D NAND flash.