Citigroup: Gives ASMPT (00522) a "buy" rating with a target price of 105 Hong Kong dollars.

Citi released a research report stating that ASMPT (00522) is given a "buy" rating with a target price of 105 Hong Kong dollars. The median revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2025 indicates a year-on-year flat to 9% decrease, which is 9% lower than market expectations. The bank believes that the gross margin and guidance are disappointing, but also notes encouraging progress by existing customers in HBM, as well as positive signals from preliminary orders from another new customer. Citi points out that ASMPT's profit for the fourth quarter of 2024 fell to breakeven primarily due to declining gross margins in the semiconductor (SEMI) and surface mount technology (SMT) segments, which was disappointing. Advanced packaging (AP) remains strong, while SMT further declined due to seasonal weakness. The Book-to-Bill ratio remained stable at 0.96 for the quarter, mainly driven by semiconductor orders (1.09), especially for high bandwidth memory (HBM) thermal compression bonding (TCB) orders.