Mi Technovation 4Q net profit jumps 77% on higher revenue and forex gains as US dollar strengthens
Mi Technovation Bhd delivered a robust fourth quarter, highlighted by a sharp jump in net profit on the back of higher revenue and favorable foreign exchange movements, underscoring the company’s improving top-line momentum as it navigates a challenging global environment. The quarterly performance reflected strong contributions from its core semiconductor businesses, with market demand in key regions aiding both equipment and material segments. While earnings benefited from forex gains amid a stronger U.S. dollar, the company also highlighted disciplined cost management and a continued focus on expanding high-potential product lines. As Mi Technovation looks to 2025, it remains cautiously optimistic but emphasizes structural improvements and strategic investments to sustain growth despite macro volatility. The market responded positively, with shares rising modestly after the results, while the firm reaffirmed its commitment to progressing its product development roadmap and pilot-scale production initiatives.
Q4 2024 Financial Performance and Key Drivers
Mi Technovation Bhd reported a fourth-quarter net profit of RM20.9 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2024, marking a substantial year-over-year increase of 76.81% from RM11.82 million a year earlier. This strong profitability expansion was driven by a combination of higher revenue and favorable foreign exchange gains, stemming from the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the ringgit. The quarterly earnings per share (EPS) for 4QFY2024 rose to 2.34 sen from 1.32 sen in the prior-year period, signaling improved profitability per share alongside stronger overall earnings.
Revenue for the quarter rose 15.33% to RM111.43 million, up from RM96.62 million in 4QFY2023. This growth was underpinned by robust performance from Mi Technovation’s two primary business units within the semiconductor segment: the Semiconductor Equipment Business Unit (SEBU) and the Semiconductor Material Business Unit (SMBU). SEBU posted a notable year-on-year revenue increase of 20.2%, while SMBU reported an 11.4% rise. The gains in both units were supported by higher machine deliveries in Taiwan and China, coupled with sustained demand in China and South Korea, which served to bolster the company’s top-line performance for the quarter.
During the period, Mi Technovation did not declare a dividend for the quarter, signaling a deliberate approach to reinvest in growth opportunities and balance sheet resilience. This decision aligns with the company’s forward-looking stance, as it prioritizes internal development and capacity expansion over immediate shareholder distributions in the near term.
The quarter’s positive results built on momentum from the preceding year, reinforcing the company’s strategic emphasis on its core segments and its efforts to capitalize on regional demand dynamics. The stability and growth observed in SEBU and SMBU reflect Mi Technovation’s ability to leverage its product portfolio and geographic reach to drive revenue expansion in a competitive market landscape.
In addition to the quarterly performance, Mi Technovation’s management underscored the ongoing importance of cost discipline and efficiency improvements as part of its broader strategy to sustain profitability amid a volatile macro environment. While forex gains contributed meaningfully to the quarter’s net profit, the company reiterated that its long-term financial health depends on a combination of revenue growth, product mix optimization, and ongoing operational enhancements.
The company’s quarterly results also highlighted the resilience of its customer base and its capacity to align production and delivery schedules with demand from key markets. By maintaining a balanced regional exposure and a diversified product mix, Mi Technovation aimed to mitigate external shocks while continuing to pursue opportunities in high-growth segments of the semiconductor ecosystem.
The results for the quarter reaffirmed Mi Technovation’s position as a critical supplier within its niche, especially in areas where mobility, wearables, high-performance computing, and memory solutions intersect with automotive and renewable energy applications. The company’s emphasis on expanding its Mi Series, Ai Series, and related test and module platforms positions it to capture incremental demand as end-market dynamics evolve.
Full-Year 2024 Results and Outlook for 2025
For the full financial year 2024, Mi Technovation recorded a net profit of RM68.07 million, up 23.52% from RM55.1 million in FY2023. Revenue for the year rose 30.2% to RM463.46 million, compared with RM355.96 million in the prior year. These 2024 results reflect the continued strength of the company’s core semiconductor operations and the positive contribution from its strategic initiatives, even as global economic conditions remained complex and multifaceted.
Looking ahead to FY2025, the company acknowledged that the business environment is expected to remain challenging and volatile given the broader global context. Nevertheless, Mi Technovation signaled a proactive approach to strengthening internal operations as a primary driver of sustainable profitability. Management articulated a plan to optimise its organizational structure, improve efficiency, and reduce costs, recognizing that robust execution in these areas can help offset volatility and protect margins even if revenue growth slows in certain cycles.
The management team’s forward-looking commentary highlighted several strategic implications for the coming year. First, the company aims to leverage its existing capabilities while pursuing selective investments to expand capacity and capabilities in high-potential domains. Second, the emphasis on operational optimization suggests a focus on process improvements, supply chain resilience, and productivity gains that can translate into better cost-to-serve metrics and enhanced competitive positioning. Third, Mi Technovation pointed to its ongoing program of product development and roadmap execution as a cornerstone of its growth strategy, with anticipated advances in both hardware and platform software that can unlock new revenue streams and deepen customer relationships.
From a broader perspective, the 2025 outlook acknowledges the inherent volatility of the technology sector, particularly for supply chains and demand patterns tied to consumer electronics, data centers, and automotive electronics. The company’s strategic stance—prioritizing efficiency, organizational effectiveness, and a disciplined capital allocation approach—serves as a framework to navigate potential demand fluctuations while continuing to pursue top-line growth through a diversified product portfolio.
In summarizing the annual performance and the outlook, Mi Technovation’s leadership underscored a commitment to maintaining momentum in both the SEBU and SMBU segments, while supporting expansion in the SSBU segment’s Power Module Pilot line. The annual results also reinforce the importance of the company’s focus areas, including mobility and wearables through Mi Series, high-performance computing and memory via Ai Series products (LAB, ZLAB, and LCB), along with automotive and renewable energy applications that are driving the SI Series Known Good Die (KGD) testing platform. These strategic bets align with broader industry trends toward advanced packaging, reliability testing, and modular energy solutions.
The company’s confidence in FY2025 hinges on its capacity to translate product development into tangible market outcomes, leveraging existing demand in its core markets and pursuing new opportunities where its test and module capabilities can provide differentiating value. While the fiscal year 2024 demonstrated solid growth and profitability, management’s tone for 2025 remained cautious about external headwinds, yet constructive about the potential for controlled expansion and operational improvements to sustain momentum.
Segment Breakdown and Strategic Focus Areas
Semiconductor Equipment Business Unit (SEBU)
Within SEBU, Mi Technovation identified three principal markets where it intends to intensify its efforts: mobility and wearables, supported by the Mi Series products; high-performance computing and memory, driven by its Ai Series products (including LAB, ZLAB, and LCB); and automotive and renewable energy, where it is broadening its Si Series Known Good Die (KGD) test platform. The company’s emphasis on these three domains reflects a deliberate alignment of its core capabilities with high-growth end markets that demand advanced testing, assembly, and reliability solutions.
In mobility and wearables, the Mi Series is positioned to address the growing trend toward compact, energy-efficient devices with increasingly sophisticated sensors and connectivity requirements. The high-performance computing and memory segment, empowered by Ai Series offerings, targets workloads that demand substantial processing power, memory bandwidth, and reliability, which are critical in data centers, AI accelerators, and edge computing environments. The automotive and renewables space represents a longer-term and structurally meaningful growth vector, where the Si Series KGDs can support stringent quality and reliability standards essential to vehicle electronics and energy storage systems.
Semiconductor Material Business Unit (SMBU)
SMBU’s performance and outlook indicate a more nuanced trajectory. The segment is anticipated to experience flat growth in mobility and wearables, reflecting a consolidation phase or tempered demand in certain consumer-oriented segments. However, the high-bandwidth memory demand within the high-performance computing and memory space is expected to rise, signaling a shift in customer requirements toward memory-centric solutions and advanced packaging to meet data-intensive workloads. This dual dynamic—stability in some mobility-related applications, paired with rising demand for memory-centric devices—illustrates how SMBU’s offerings can contribute to overall revenue resilience even when specific end-market segments face slower growth.
Power and Automotive Segment
The company projects stable growth in the power and automotive segment during the second half of the year, suggesting a favorable balance between ongoing demand for automotive electronics, power management solutions, and related systems. This outlook indicates confidence in the underlying demand for reliable, efficient power modules and automotive-grade components as the industry continues its shift toward electrification, energy efficiency, and smart vehicle technologies. The constructive view on this segment underscores Mi Technovation’s exposure to the automotive ecosystem, where long product cycles and increasing complexity in electronic systems can provide steadier demand.
SSBU Segment and In-House Power Module Pilot Line
Mi Technovation’s SSBU segment is making notable progress by establishing its first in-house Power Module Pilot production line. The company stated that this pilot line is expected to be ready for prototype builds by mid-2025. This milestone represents a meaningful step toward internalizing critical manufacturing capabilities, enabling faster iteration, tighter control over production quality, and closer alignment between product development and manufacturing execution. The pilot line serves as a tangible platform to validate design concepts, improve process yields, and shorten time-to-market for future modules and power-related products.
Management further indicated that business unit leadership is focused on delivering the product development roadmap for FY2025. This commitment signals that the company intends to translate R&D efforts into concrete products and prototypes that can be showcased to customers and potential partners, reinforcing its competitive position in a technology landscape characterized by rapid innovation and evolving requirements.
Market Reaction, Valuation, and Strategic Implications
Trading activity around Mi Technovation’s shares reflected cautious optimism following the quarterly and annual results. Shares closed up three sen, or 1.46%, at RM2.08 on the trading day, resulting in a market capitalization of RM1.83 billion. The modest share-price movement suggests that investors acknowledged the positive earnings trajectory and the broader visibility provided by the company’s forward-looking commentary, while remaining mindful of the risks inherent in a volatile global economy. The absence of a dividend for the quarter aligns with a long-term growth strategy that prioritizes balance-sheet strength and capital allocation toward strategic initiatives, including product development, capacity expansion, and potential acquisitions or partnerships that could enhance the company’s competitive edge.
From an investor relations perspective, several key factors emerge as potential catalysts for Mi Technovation in the near to medium term. First, the 4Q2024 results confirm a meaningful uplift in profitability driven by revenue growth and forex-based earnings, reinforcing the company’s ability to translate top-line gains into bottom-line improvements. Second, the continued expansion of SEBU and SMBU in their respective focus areas signals resilience in the core business, especially as demand in high-growth segments such as AI-enabled HPC, memory solutions, and advanced testing platforms remains robust in global semiconductors supply chains. Third, the initiation and ongoing progress of the SSBU Power Module Pilot line offers a tangible milestone that could unlock new product cycles and collaboration opportunities with customers seeking integrated power solutions.
The absence of a dividend, while not unusual in periods of aggressive investment and capacity-building, may be weighed against the company’s growth trajectory and capital structure by investors who prioritize income. However, the management’s emphasis on efficiency gains and cost reductions aligns with a prudent approach that can support longer-term profitability and sustainable growth, even in the face of potential macro headwinds. The combination of growth-oriented product development, strategic focus on high-demand segments, and an internal manufacturing milestone provides a compelling narrative for Mi Technovation’s positioning in the semiconductor equipment and materials landscape.
Strategically, the company appears to be prioritizing a balanced portfolio approach. By maintaining momentum in SEBU and SMBU while advancing the in-house SSBU pilot line, Mi Technovation is trying to create a multi-faceted growth engine that can adapt to shifts in demand across mobility, wearables, HPC, memory, and automotive electronics. The emphasis on AI-related offerings alongside traditional semiconductor applications reflects a recognition of the industry’s trajectory toward more intelligent, data-driven systems. If executed effectively, these strategic pillars could yield synergies across product lines, enabling cross-selling opportunities, improved resource utilization, and more resilient revenue streams.
In sum, the 2024 performance established a foundation for Mi Technovation’s future growth. The company’s outlook for FY2025 remains framed by a challenging yet navigable environment, with a clear focus on internal operational improvements, cost discipline, and a deliberate roadmap for product development and pilot manufacturing. Investors and stakeholders will be watching how the SEBU, SMBU, SSBU, and Power and Automotive segments evolve in concert, and whether the Power Module Pilot line can accelerate the company’s ability to deliver differentiated power solutions to customers in automotive and renewable energy markets.
Conclusion
Mi Technovation Bhd’s 4Q2024 results demonstrate meaningful profitability expansion driven by higher revenue and favorable forex movements, supported by solid demand in SEBU and SMBU across key regions. The full-year performance for 2024 shows strong top-line growth and a steady increase in net profit, underscoring the company’s ability to convert revenue gains into earnings while managing costs in a volatile global environment. Looking ahead, the company emphasizes internal improvements—optimising organizational structure, boosting efficiency, and reducing costs—as core to sustaining growth in FY2025. The SEGME focus on SEBU, SMBU, and the strategic SSBU Power Module Pilot line signals a continued push toward advanced semiconductor solutions, high-performance computing and memory applications, and integrated power modules for automotive and renewable energy contexts. Market activity around the stock suggests a measured but constructive reception to the results, with investors recognizing both the near-term momentum and the potential for longer-term value creation through product development and in-house manufacturing capabilities. As Mi Technovation advances its roadmap in FY2025, the industry will closely watch how its strategic initiatives translate into sustained revenue growth, improved margins, and broader market penetration across its three main business units and emerging power solutions platform.