1. ASKPCB's total production capacity is approximately 760,000 square meters per month.

2. the Thailand factory is expected to commence trial production by Q2 2024, with an initial planned monthly capacity of 120,000 square meters, capable of providing volume production of 28-layer PCBs.

3. ASKPCB can achieve a productivity of RMB 2.5-3 million per person per year, or even higher.

4. ASKPCB's two core pathways of growth are "data centers & servers" and "automotive electronics."

On May 3rd, 2023, (PCB UNION)-ASKPCB (002913.SZ), a  leading PCB manufacturer, hosted an online performance briefing to communicate with investors.

ASKPCB's Revenue Ratio, Main Products, and Production Capacity

ASKPCB (002913.SZ) has a global presence centered in Hunan Yiyang, Guangdong Zhaoqing, and Thailand,with a total production capacity of approximately 760,000 square meters per month. The company generated revenue of RMB 4.567 billion, a year-on-year growth of 3% in 2022. Categorized by application fields, ICT products accounted for more than 50%, automotive and digital energy products accounted for approximately 25%, and consumer products that has been continuously decreasing in recent years accounted for around 25%.

Currently, ASKPCB has the capability to mass-produce various large-size and small-size boards related to servers with 18 or fewer layers, with capability to produce customizable orders of up to 28 layers in small batches. The testing boards can achieve more than 36 layers. 

Status of Thai Factory

ASKPCB's Thailand plant is located in Rojana Ayutthaya Industrial Park of Thailand, which is in close proximity to WUS Group's Thai factory and only dozens of kilometers away from the city center of Bangkok. With a land area of approximately 26.67 hectares, the Thailand factory is expected to commence trial production by Q2 2024, with an initial planned monthly capacity of 120,000 square meters, capable of providing volume production of 28-layer PCBs in all fields, including data centers and next-generation switches.

The factory is expected to address the supply chain security concerns of core customers, providing them with matched services across various domains, including servers, cars, communications, and consumer products. But that is not all, the factory is also a crucial cog for the company to meet the rapidly expanding PCB demand in Thailand and surrounding Southeast Asian countries.  In recent years, these countries have experienced rapid GDP growth and are following the path of China with a strong demand for PCBs and favorable order prices.

The Thailand factory's level of digitization is expected to be slightly lower than that of their Guandong-Zhaoqing factory and similar to that of their Hunan-Yiyang factory, with their equipment being more updated and efficient as compared to their Yiyang factory. The order prices of the Thailand factory will also be much higher than those of its Chinese factories, largely due to intense competition among Chinese PCB manufacturers. However, It is expected that the gross and net profit margins of the Thailand factory will be higher than that of China. As for the Thailand factory's per capita revenue, it is still uncertain since China's labor market is more stable and personnel quality is higher. 

For the prosperity and future growth of PCBs in various domains, ASKPCB has stated that the next five years are expected to see robust demand in servers, storage, AI, and automotive electronics (primarily electrification and intelligent driving) sectors, as well as in communication electronics. Among them, data centers & servers and automotive electronics constitute ASKPCB's two core growth areas.

Layout in the server domain

Plan: ASKPCB's efforts in server layout date back to 2015, which has undergone a cultivation period of 7-8 years, keeping up with industry leading peers. By 2022, data center-related products will account for over 20% of ASKPCB's total server product sales, and revenue from data center-related products is expected to continue to grow in 2023. A substantial customer matrix has been formed, involving chip makers, brand manufacturers, and OEM factories.

Products: ASKPCB's major server offerings encompass general server motherboards, GPU, peripheral boards (power supply boards, fan boards, memory, hard disk backplane), switches, routers, and high-speed computers.

Clients: ASKPCB has certified domestic customers, including Inspur, Huawei, ZTE, H3C, and xfusion, as well as global brand server manufacturers and ODM/OEM factories such as HPE, Foxconn, Inventec, Compal, Wistron, Quanta, and Pegatron. The company has been invited as a new generation server supplier by Intel and AMD. By way of ODM/OEM factories, the company supplies cloud clients like AWS and Google.

Capacity：ASKPCB can satisfy demands from both domestic and foreign supply chains. Its Hunan Yinyang factory mainly produces PCBs for domestic high-end servers and switches, its Zaoqing factory focuses on PCBs suitable for GPU, peripherals, and high-speed computers. Its Thailand factory provides exchanges and high-end servers for strategic foreign customers.

Layout in the automotive field

Automobile is one of the two core pathways of ASKPCB's future development. ASKPCB is striving to develop and reserve new products aimed at electrification, intellectualization, and integration to tap into key clients both domestical and abroad. Among the core clients that ASKPCB has cultivated, BYD and Tesla are among the list. ASKPCB, through Inventec, has obtained orders for the automotive communication modules and has established extremely in-depth cooperation with several international parts giant companies.

ASKPCB will increase the proportion of PCB products for automobile safety devices and initiate projects for thick copper and high voltage insulation, establish insulation design rules, develop 6oz thick copper products, and improve the proportion of thick copper inverter products. Additionally, ASKPCB is actively pursuing the layout of power device pcb products, automotive electronic control systems, main drive inverters, on-board chargers, DC/AC converters, and charging piles, particularly ceramics products, which may be accomplished by internal growth or acquisitions.

Overcome the difficulty of fierce market competition by its advantages

ASKPCB has established its subsequent development strategy, which can be summarized into five points: 

1. Digitization is critical to the entire development of ASKPCB. Among the global PCB industry, ASKPCB was the first to introduce large-size and super large-size into PCB manufacturing , which can raise efficiency by at least 25%. When integrating large-size  PCB production with digitalization, ASKPCB can achieve a productivity of RMB 2.5-3 million per person per year, or even higher.

2. Always adhering to "data centers & servers" and "automotive electronics" as the two core pathways of growth, strategic resources such as talents and facilities will continually be directed towards these two core paths.

3.Enhancing technological innovation and product diversification, and continuously improving technical capabilities, AI server motherboards, middle or high-end HDI, and ceramic products are all part of future planning.

4. Transforming from PCB manufacturing to PCB intelligent manufacturing, building a complete industry chain from one-stop services (including PCB design, module assembly) to full chains of production including core material recycle such as oxidized copper.

5. Actively embracing the domestic and foreign markets, achieving Dual Circulation and globalization, the Thai factory represents only the beginning of ASKPCB's overseas layouts, and more anticipated in the future.