ISC Doubles Test Socket Share at Largest North American Smartphone Customer to 40%

What happened

Semiconductor test socket maker ISC has doubled its share of test socket supply at its largest North American smartphone customer to 40% from 20%. The source-stated cause is that the customer diversified orders after a major incumbent supplier failed to meet delivery deadlines. Speaking on its Oct. 27 earnings conference call, ISC said shipments to the customer's mass-production lines began increasing significantly in the third quarter and that it has secured orders for the first half of next year. All sockets ISC has supplied to the customer so far have been pogo-pin sockets, primarily used in mass-production testing of mobile application processors (APs); ISC's core rubber socket product had not entered this market. The customer has also commissioned ISC to develop a product that would replace existing pogo-pin sockets with rubber sockets, and once development is completed, pogo-pin socket orders are expected to shift to ISC's core product. ISC generated approximately 20 billion won in revenue from the customer last year, a figure expected to rise to as much as 35 billion won this year. ISC reported third-quarter consolidated revenue of 71.8 billion won and operating profit of 21.8 billion won, up 11.2% and 25.4% year-over-year, with revenue down 1.6% and operating profit up 2.4% quarter-over-quarter and an operating margin of 30.4%. Third-quarter mobile revenue totaled 12.4 billion won, down 8% year-over-year and 15% quarter-over-quarter, reflecting a socket back-end production bottleneck that pushed approximately 11 billion won in orders into the fourth quarter. ISC expects record-high revenue and operating profit in the fourth quarter and forecasts full-year revenue of approximately 300 billion won and operating profit of 100 billion won. On capacity, the first Vietnam plant completed an expansion in the second quarter and began operations in October; ISC aims to start operations at its second Vietnam plant in the second quarter of 2027 and its Songdo plant in the first quarter of 2028, with annual capacity set to rise from the current 2 million units to 3 million in 2027, 4 million in 2028 and 5 million in 2029.

Impact and signal

Affected components and suppliers

Source and time

Source: The Elec · 10/28/2026 · View original source