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Falling chip prices hurt Nanya

Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation's second-largest computer-memory chipmaker, had its first loss in seven quarters after semiconductor prices declined.

The second-quarter net loss was NT$982 million (US$30.8 million), or NT$0.28 a share, compared with profit of NT$3 billion, or NT$0.85, a year earlier, the company said in a statement yesterday, citing unaudited figures. Sales slipped 1 percent to NT$10.4 billion, according to previously released figures.

Nanya's average selling prices for chips known as dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, fell 28 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months and 51 percent from a year earlier, Vice President Pai Pei-lin (白培霖) told an investor conference.

Besides rising prices, Nanya is also receiving more output from its 50-50 joint venture plant with Infineon Technologies AG, Inotera Memories Inc (華亞半導體), which uses 12-inch silicon wafers that yield more efficient production than Nanya's own eight-inch facilities.

Nanya's second-quarter gross margin was 2 percent, compared with 16 percent in the previous three months and 43 percent a year earlier, the company said. Still, shipments rose 33 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months and more than doubled from a year earlier, Pai said.

Pai said his outlook was optimistic as average selling prices rose 5 percent to 10 percent in July from June. They are expected to continue rising in August, he said.

"Demand from PC makers is stronger than expected," pushing up DRAM prices and shipments in the third quarter from the second, Pai said.

Benchmark DRAM prices ended the second quarter at US$2.40 on the spot market, unchanged from the first quarter following a mid-May rebound from lows near US$2.3, but well below US$4.84 at the end of June last year, according to Taipei-based chip broker DRAMeXchange.com.

Infineon, Europe's biggest chipmaker, which gets more than a third of its sales from DRAM chips, also posted a bigger-than-expected operating loss for its fiscal third quarter yesterday but saw improvement in the fourth quarter as prices stabilized.

The German chipmaker reported a second straight quarterly loss because prices dropped more than the company anticipated and it had costs to shut a German factory.

The net loss in Infineon's fiscal third quarter through June widened to 240 million euros (US$289 million) from 56 million euros a year earlier, the Munich-based company said in a statement yesterday. Infineon wrote down 90 million euros in costs, mostly related to the planned closing of an outdated factory in Munich. Sales declined 16 percent to 1.61 billion euros in the period.

For the fiscal fourth quarter through end-September, the group expected an improved result, but did not provide concrete figures in its outlook.

"We have made good progress in our corporate restructuring. However, in the third quarter we have seen adverse effects on memory products and security and chip-card ICs [integrated circuits] as well as at some of our baseband customers," chief executive Wolfgang Ziebart said in a statement. "In spite of this, we expect an improved fourth quarter compared to the third quarter."
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