By Greg Gao

(JW Insights) Feb 10--ASE Technology Holding(日月光投控), the world’s largest chip testing and packaging service provider, plans to transfer about 25% of its system-in-package production capacity out of Chinese mainland in the future, the company’s CFO Joseph Tung revealed recently in respond to investors’ queries.

The company’s investors asked that since ASE’s system-in-package (SiP) lines are highly concentrated in the Chinese mainland, whether it intends to disperse the production lines to other countries and regions. Joseph Tung responded that ASE is building lines outside the Chinese mainland, such as Vietnam.

Chief operating officer Tien Wu said that most of its high-end semiconductor packaging lines would remain in the Taiwan region in the next few years and assures customers that their needs will be met.

Meanwhile, ASE is adding new assembly and testing manufacturing capacity at its Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea sites to meet customer needs as its customers in the past two years have requested further diversity in capacity manufacturing sites due to concerns over geopolitical tensions, Wu said.

ASE agreed to sell its four factories and businesses in the Chinese mainland to Wise Road Capital for $1.46 billion in December 2021. The company stated that through this transaction, ASE aimed to optimize the strategic layout and effective use of resources of its packaging and testing business, thereby strengthening its overall competitiveness in the Chinese mainland market.

At the same time, the company will continue to boost investment in advanced technology research and development and expand production capacity in the Taiwan region, according to ASE.