ASMPT's AI Inflection: Photonics Triples, a New CEO, and the HBM5 Gambit
Q2 bookings +97.6% YoY, book-to-bill 1.43 — and a leadership handoff at the cycle peak
0522.HK · Earnings Call · 2026-07-29
An Unusual Sign-Off: The CEO Handoff
Robin Ng's final earnings call as ASMPT Group CEO was neither a retirement speech nor a victory lap — it was a passing of the baton at an inflection point. Having helmed the company "at the very height of the COVID pandemic," he signed off on call number 25, handing the reins to Bassel Haddad with an explicit strategic mandate:The transformation had been telegraphed all year — the divestment of the leadframe business and the "assessing" of SMT and NEXX, as Ng put it in March. But what's notable is the timing: the outgoing CEO leaves with the company firing on all cylinders. Q2 revenue of USD 630.0 million (+52.1% YoY) beat the top of guidance; Q2 bookings of USD 903.6 million rose 97.6% YoY; book-to-bill hit 1.43, the highest since H1 2021.I look forward to the company progressing on its transformation journey as it sharpens its focus on the back-end packaging business, a business that has experienced rapid growth over the last few years.
Photonics Triples — and the CPO Clock Starts
The clearest evidence of a new growth engine is photonics. “SEMI's pluggable optical transceiver solutions revenue almost tripled year-on-year to approximately USD 75 million in first half 2026.” — Cher Ng, Group CEO · 2026-07-29 This is the pluggable optical transceiver wave powering 800G-and-beyond lines, and it's now one of the largest contributors within the AP portfolio alongside TCB. The question analysts pressed was whether this converts into co-packaged optics. Ng was candid: “CPO is just small at this point in time. We believe, from the packaging equipment standpoint, maybe the inflection point will be somewhere between '27, '28, more likely '28 for CPO.” — Cher Ng, Group CEO · 2026-07-29 The positioning across the CPO value chain — EIC/PIC integration through hybrid bonding and TCB, AMICRA fiber attach — was laid out slide by slide. The CPO market is where ASMPT hopes to compound.Memory's Patient Chess: HBM4 Delay, HBM5 JEP
On memory TCB, the tape told a confusing story. Gokul Hariharan pointed out that Korea revenue momentum "is down quite a bit year-on-year," a function of HBM tool shipments lagging the orders. Ng confirmed the industry is "taking a little bit more time to meet upgraded HBM4 technical specification" — echoing a delay Katie Xu had flagged in April — but paired it with a genuine new development:That JEP was already foreshadowed in the April call — “in the process of finalizing an evaluation program with a key memory player... enabling our group's technology from memory as a process standard” — Cher Ng, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-04-22 — but its formalization, plus the HBM5 focus, lets ASMPT argue the HBM4 into HBM5 transition keeps TCB relevant past the point where the stack-height limit was feared to cede to hybrid bonding. As Katie Xu had noted back in March, “if we talk about HBM 20-high beyond, then at that point, maybe hybrid bond will be kicking in” — Yifan Xu, Finance or Financial Officer (likely CFO or similar) · 2026-03-04 — an assumption the company is now actively parrying by pushing hybrid bonding solution (Gen-2) for logic while it can extend TCB into HBM5.We also have low volume manufacturing with multiple memory makers for HBM4 with our tools... we have entered into a JEP with a key memory player for advanced memory packaging, particularly for HBM5.