Gelonghui, January 15 | Huaxing Securities published a rating report, believing that SMIC's multi-year expansion plan is progressing steadily. The company currently favors expanding production with the N22-28 process to avoid competition from more mature 12-inch or 8-inch process nodes. Because of these more mature process fields, other mainland peers also have related production capacity and continue to expand. The report predicts that SMIC's capital expenditure may remain at a high level this year. SMIC raised its capital expenditure for 2023 to 7.5 billion US dollars in November last year to expand ahead of schedule, and predicts that SMIC's gross margin will remain around double digits this year. The bank lowered its target price from HK$27 to HK$22.5, reaffirming its rating as a “buy”. Considering that the company's current valuation is lower than its book value and has shown profit resilience at the bottom of this industry cycle, it may attract the interest of value investors.