Chip maker Nanya third-quarter profits more than double

Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), Taiwan's second-biggest memory-chip maker, said third-quarter profits more than doubled to a record, as demand from makers of personal computers pushed up prices.

Net income surged to NT$5.17 billion (US$155 million), or NT$1.35 a share, in the three months ending last month, from NT$2.02 billion, or NT$0.53 a share, a year earlier, Nanya said yesterday.

Gross margin rose to 32 percent in the third quarter, from 28 percent in the second quarter and 21 percent over a year earlier, the company said.

Capital spending will jump more than 10-fold to NT$60 billion next year from NT$5.8 billion this year, vice president Pai Pei-lin (白培霖) said at a briefing in Taoyuan yesterday. The expenditure will help boost capacity by 50 percent or more next year, he said.

"The PC market is very strong in Europe and the US," Pai said.

"We are unable to fully meet clients' demands because of a capacity shortage," he added.

Nanya will post a record profit in the fourth quarter, Pai forecasted, saying that selling prices will rise from the previous quarter.

Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), in which Nanya holds a 36 percent stake, will double capacity by the end of next year as it raises its capital spending to NT$40 billion this year, from a previous estimate of NT$27 billion, Inotera president Charles Kau (高啟全) said at another briefing. Capital expenditure will increase to NT$48 billion next year, he said.

Inotera's third-quarter profits more than doubled to NT$4.36 billion from NT$1.58 billion a year earlier, the company said.