United Microelectronics Corp (UMC,
The figure for last month was 14 percent lower from NT$7.14 billion in January, the Hsinchu-based company said in a statement yesterday.
Revenues in the two months to February fell to NT$13.28 billion from NT$16.32 billion a year earlier.
Sales fell for the second straight month, although the company said on Feb. 2 at an investors' conference that orders should recover this month. The company said at the time that it expected wafer shipments in the first quarter to fall 17 percent from the previous quarter with prices down 10 percent sequentially.
Customers for mobile-phone chips may be experiencing some "weakness," said Johnny Chen (
"The first quarter may not be the bottom for UMC," said Chen, who has a "hold" recommendation on the stock.
UMC on Feb. 2 said that net income fell for the first time in six quarters as factory use slumped. Fourth-quarter profit slid more than 80 percent to NT$1.3 billion, or NT$0.07 per share, from NT$6.7 billion, or NT$0.39, a year earlier.
Capacity use in the first quarter will be about 60 percent, the company said last month.
Shipments will fall about 17 percent from the fourth quarter, and average selling prices will drop by about 10 percent, the company said.
Mobile-phone sales will exceed 730 million units this year, Stamford, Connecticut-based researcher Gartner Inc said yesterday.
That is an increase of 8 percent from the 674 million units sold last year, when sales were up 30 percent on 2003.
Demand from UMC customers such as Xilinx Inc failed to keep pace with the Taiwanese company's fourth-quarter expansion, reducing factory use in the period to 72 percent from 96 percent a year earlier.
UMC shares have lost 1.7 percent of their value since Jan. 1 compared with a 0.55 percent gain for the nation's benchmark TAIEX in the same period.
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