[ET Net News Agency, 17 February 2020] Morgan Stanley raised its target price for SMIC
(00981) to HK$14.5 from HK$8.9 but downgraded its rating to "underweight" from
"equal-weight".
The research house said the company's 4Q 2019 gross margin reached 23.8% (ex-subsidy
EBITDA margin should be around 34%), but this is still lower than the 25%-30% level gross
margin back in 2015-2016 when the fabs were also full. This means the recent investment in
leading-edge continues to drag the company's profitability.
SMIC guided the ramp of 14nm production in 2020 would negatively affect the gross margin
by 5 percentage points given the surge of depreciation. Given limited room to grow revenue
from here, Morgan thinks 4Q 2019 could be the peak earnings of the coming quarters. (KL)