Nanya lowers forecast as memory chip prices fall

Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation's biggest maker of computer-memory chips, said it expects to make a smaller fourth-quarter profit than the NT$800 million (US$23 million) it forecast in October because of falling prices.

Spot prices for the most widely used memory chip have slipped to US$3.70 from a peak this year of US$4.78 on Aug. 6.

Computer makers have been cutting memory-chip content to keep PC prices constant, as prices of flat-panel displays and hard disk drives rise, Nanya and analysts said.

"We didn't anticipate rising prices for other components," said Crystal Lee, an analyst with ABN Amro Bank NV who is forecasting a NT$45 million fourth-quarter profit for Nanya.

"Sales of PCs and components such as flat-panel displays are good, but memory chip sales aren't," she said.

The price of a computer flat-panel screen measuring 17 inches diagonally has risen as high as US$280 from US$220 earlier this year. Individual consumers have contributed more than companies to rising sales of PCs and flat-panel displays so far this year, Lee said.

Nanya's shares gained NT$0.10, or 0.5 percent, to close at NT$20.60 on the TAIEX yesterday. The shares have risen 3 percent since Jan. 1 compared with a 33 percent rise in the TAIEX.

"Demand is soft, business has been slower than we expected," Nanya president Lien Jih-chang (連日昌) said in an interview.

Nanya, based in Taipei, last week said sales last month fell 8 percent from a year ago. Sales dropped to NT$2.76 billion from NT$3 billion a year earlier. Sales fell from NT$2.8 billion in October.

Nanya said today it plans to sell US$200 million of bonds convertible to shares in the company in the first quarter of next year.

It will use the proceeds to buy equipment for a new chip-making factory it has built near Taoyuan with Infineon Technologies of Germany.

The company said it doesn't expect its Inotera Memories Inc (華亞半導體) venture with Infineon to make a profit until the first quarter of 2005 at the earliest.

Nanya said for the next three years it will make only DRAM chips and has no plans to move into production of flash memory chips used in mobile phones and digital cameras.