Macronix International Co (旺宏電子), a local maker of memory chips that counts Nintendo Co among its clients, yesterday posted NT$1.82 billion (US$56.5 million) in net income, or NT$0.56 per share, up 121 percent from NT$825 million, or NT$0.26 per share, a year earlier, on rising shipments amid the global economic recovery.
However, fourth-quarter profit was down 20 percent from NT$2.27 billion in profit, or NT$0.69 per share, in the previous quarter, the Hsinchu-based company said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
Macronix produces read-only memory (ROM) products and NOR flash memory chips for clients. These products are used in a vast range of consumer, computing, communications and networking and industrial applications.
In the fourth quarter, flash memory accounted for 56 percent of the company’s total revenue, ROM products comprised 38 percent, while 6 percent came from FBG-related foundry business.
Quarterly revenue fell 11 percent from the previous quarter, but rose 32 percent from a year earlier to NT$7.4 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, the company’s data showed.
“The sequential revenue decrease was a result of seasonal gliding demand for ROM and FBG product lines,” Macronix said in the statement.
For the whole of last year, the company reported NT$5.7 billion in profit, or NT$1.74 per share, on revenue of NT$26.37 billion. The full-year net income was 26 percent higher than the previous year’s level, when the company posted NT$4.52 billion in profit, or NT$1.39 per share.
Shares of the memory chipmaker rose 2.08 percent to NT$17.2 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, before its fourth-quarter financial results and business guidance for this quarter were released.
For the current quarter, Macronix estimates revenue is likely to reach between NT$6.1 billion and NT$6.3 billion, down by between 14.9 percent and 17.6 percent from the previous quarter.
The company also projects a slight decline in gross margin for this quarter, as it projects that it will reach 42 percent to 44 percent, down from 45 percent in the fourth quarter and 46 percent in the third quarter of last year.
The company was also upbeat about its capacity utilization rate for this quarter, forecasting between 90 percent and 95 percent for this quarter. The rate was 90 percent in the fourth quarter and 102 percent in the third quarter, the company’s previous financial reports said.
Macronix has maintained its capital expenditure at between NT$1 billion and NT$2 billion for this year, compared with NT$976 million last year and NT$1.76 billion in 2008.
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