PETALING JAYA: Aemulus Holdings Bhd is exploring the possibility of supplying front-end wafer testing in the CMOS image sensor (CIS) market for Chinese customers.

       CIS is an electronic chip used for digital processing under the semiconductor industry.

       The group plans to deliver more CIS testers to the Chinese customer for the second half of its financial year 2022 (2H22) due to resilient demand from automotive and security applications, said CGS-CIMB Research.

       The research firm believes the CIS segment could be the company’s new growth driver as it will diversify the company’s exposure beyond the radio-frequency segment.

       Due to travel restrictions and lockdown in China’s major cities, the group expects lesser demand in their “mobile and tablet” segment for the third quarter of its financial year 2022 (3Q22).

       The group has hopes for the situation to recover within the next few quarters.

       “It is also optimistic given the increasing border reopenings and easing of Covid-19 measures, which should help facilitate business development activities and testers deployment,” CGS-CIMB Research said.

       The group’s revenue surged 38% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM37.8mil in the first half of its financial year 2022 compared with RM27.4mil in the previous year backed by higher sales from “mobile and tablets”, “automotive” and “CIS” segments.

       These segments made up 88% of the group’s revenue during the six-month period.

       However its “data centre” segment saw a 24.2% decline in sales in the 1H22 to RM4.7mil compared with RM6.2mil in the same period a year ago.

       Overall, core net profit jumped three times year-on-year to RM9.1mil in 1H22.