Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s top computer memory chipmaker, yesterday posted its smallest quarterly loss in more than two years as prices bounced back 35 percent quarter-on-quarter on faster-than-expected recovery in PC demand.
In the quarter ending on Sept. 30, Nanya’s loss narrowed to NT$3.89 billion (US$120 million), compared with a loss of NT$8.77 billion a year ago and a loss of NT$6.54 billion in the second quarter after adjustment, the company said in a statement. Revenues were flat at NT$11.51 billion last quarter.
This was the best performance since the third quarter of 2007, when the chipmaker lost NT$1.67 billion.
The Taoyuan-based Nanya saw the recent recovery as a precursor to a broader revival in corporate computer replacement next year.
To cope with a rebound, Nanya intends to increase capital spending to a combined NT$64 billion from NT$26.7 billion budgeted for this year, as well as through Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), its memory venture with Micron Technology Inc.
Nanya said it wanted to have enough capacity “before a demand tsunami occurs in the second half of next year,” Nanya Technology spokesman Pai Pei-lin (白培霖) told a media briefing.
As corporations have frozen IT spending for the past three years, PC replacement demand will be strong, Pai said.
Next year, Nanya and Inotera will spend most of their budget on technological upgrades to cost-efficient 50-nanometer technology, with the aim of completing the migration by the middle of the year, Pai said.
This should increase output by 65 percent annually next year, the company said.
This year, the chipmaker’s output is expected to grow 37 percent year-on-year.
The adoption of new-generation technology will help Nanya save 50 percent in manufacturing costs.
The company currently uses 68-nanometer technology to make next-generation DDR3 memory chips, Nanya said.
Pai said a price uptrend could extend into the current quarter as recovering demand has beaten most PC makers’ expectations and driven inventories down to very low levels.
“The recent revival has been fueled by rising consumer demand. We’re starting to see small and medium companies buying PCs,” Pai said.
Next month, Nanya intends to raise prices of mainstream DDR2 memory chips by 20 percent at a monthly rate, extending the same price hikes over the past three months, Pai said.
Pai, however, said that Nanya would remain in the red this quarter, limited by output growth during the technological migration.
To fund capacity expansion, Nanya said that it would raise NT$12.8 billion by selling 8 billion shares and taking NT$18 billion in syndicated loans by the end of this year.
Inotera also intends to borrow NT$20 billion from banks by the end of this year.
Inotera yesterday posted an improved quarterly loss of NT$2.5 billion, compared with a loss of NT$4.05 billion a year earlier and a loss of NT$4.11 billion in the second quarter.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by