Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s largest computer memory chipmaker, yesterday posted its fifth consecutive month of sales growth as prices bounced back further on continuing pickup in demand from computer makers.
Last month’s sales grew more than threefold to NT$6.05 billion (US$188 million), compared with NT$1.46 billion a year ago, the Taoyuan-based chipmaker said. That also represented the strongest rebound since January 2007, when it made NT$6.52 billion.
That also meant a 7 percent month-on-month increase, the company said.
The chipmaker has planned to hike prices for mainstream computer memory chips, or dynamic random access memory (DRAM), by between 10 percent and 20 percent last month from the month before.
Shipments slid 2 percent last month from October as the company is in a process of migrating technology to next-generation 50-nanometer technology, which would allow Nanya Technology to make chips at 50 percent lower cost.
In the January-November period, Nanya accumulated NT$37.49 billion in revenues, up 7 percent from the same period last year, a company statement said.
Unlike significant progress made by local rival Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) in returning to monthly profit, Nanya Technology has said it did not expect a turnaround this year as technological upgrades would continue to limit output.
This month the contract price is expected to reverse an uptrend over the past four months on increasing supply, researcher DRAMeXchange Technology Inc (集邦科技) said.
The contract chip price may fall by between 5 percent and 10 percent this month from last month, DRAMeXchange forecast.
Nanya Technology shares dropped 0.23 percent to NT$22 yesterday.
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