ProMOS Technologies Inc (
The company announced a net loss of NT$857 million (US$26.7 million) on net sales of NT$29.5 billion, with the results driven by weakness in the market for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips and falling prices, company executives told investors yesterday.
The chipmaker earned NT$10.1 billion in 2004 on revenue of NT$42.9 billion.
Fourth-quarter figures, also announced yesterday, reflected the overall trend with net sales dropping from NT$10.73 billion in the fourth quarter of 2004 to NT$7.08 billion in the corresponding period last year.
"Despite the declining ASPs [average selling prices] of DRAM [chips], we continued to be profitable in quarter four," ProMOS spokesman Ben Tseng (曾邦助) said.
Gross margins of 16.7 percent benefited from efficiency and technology gains at the com-pany's 8-inch and 12-inch fabs, Tseng said.
Nonetheless, the company is upbeat on the chip industry's prospects for this year.
"Prices of the second-generation double-data rate [DDR-2] memory chips are on an upward trend in the current quarter, although we expect a slight drop in the second quarter," company chairman Chen Min-liang (陳民良) said.
The upcoming release of Microsoft's Vista operating system could drive prices back up in the third quarter, Chen said.
According to a local analyst, ProMOS' fourth-quarter results were hardly surprising, given that the company's profitability still lags behind that of its larger rivals, such as Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (
ProMOS' fourth-quarter earnings per share nevertheless beat projections, said Liu Szu-liang (
The company's earnings per share remained unchanged at NT$0.04 in the fourth quarter. For the whole of last year, its loss per share was NT$0.17.
"ProMOS might be faced with a tough challenge during the first six months [of this year], as it will struggle to lower its costs due to insufficient plant capacity," he said.
By expanding its factories, especially with a newly opened 12-inch fab in Taichung, ProMOS could gain the upper hand in the second half of this year, he added.
Shares of ProMOS shot up 6.8 percent on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday to close at NT$13.40.
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