Rising costs and profit differentiation in the semiconductor industry.

Since 2026, upstream materials, wafer foundry and packaging processes in the semiconductor industry have seen price increases, driving up industry costs and gradually forming a trend of overall price increases throughout the industry chain. The impact of price hikes has already been reflected in the first quarter reports. Among them, the storage industry is the "profit pioneer" benefiting from the price hike trend, while power semiconductors and other segmented industries have shown a performance differentiation trend. In addition, over 80% of listed companies in the industry have seen year-on-year increases in operating costs. Overall, in the first quarter of 2026, over half of the listed semiconductor companies saw year-on-year growth in net profit attributable to shareholders, and the industry's overall sales gross profit margin grew by 2.49 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.