Winbond back in the black for Q1

Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子), Taiwan's second-largest computer memory-chip maker by value, returned to profit in the first quarter after the company sold inventory stockpiles.

The company turned to a net income of NT$146 million (US$4.21 million), compared with a net loss of NT$425 million in the year-earlier period and a loss of NT$4.12 billion (US$118 million) in the fourth quarter of last year.

Sales in the first quarter totalled NT$8.13 billion (US$234.2 million), up 16 percent on year, and 43 percent higher than the previous quarter. Winbond last posted a profit in Q4 of 2000.

The gain in revenue was due to increasing prices for DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips and demand for chips used in flat panel displays and ones used in other consumer electronics, Winbond said.

Chip prices have more than tripled since early November, after personal-computer makers started adding memory chips to enable the machines to run Microsoft Corp's new software. Rivals Nanya Technology Corp (南亞電子) and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) also posted first-quarter profits.

Winbond said the PC market is "weaker than expected" in the second quarter, though the company's revenue will grow on a quarter-on-quarter basis. In the first quarter, the company reduced its workforce by 7.3 percent to 3,800 workers after shutting a Taiwan factory.

Winbond will begin production of 128Mb flash memory chips in the Q4 next year and 256Mb flash chips in Q2 of 2004.