Local memory maker Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) yesterday posted a decline in its fourth-quarter financial results from the previous quarter, citing a traditional slow season for the quarter and pressure from falling average selling prices (ASP).
While the Hsinchu-based company reported its smallest quarterly profit during the past five quarters, Winbond stands to be the only local DRAM maker that was profitable in the final quarter of last year.
This is mainly attributable to the fact that the company has continued shifting its focus to special DRAM and NOR flash memory chips, while many of its local peers were left to suffer from weak prices in the volatile commodity DRAM chip market amid a supply glut.
In the period from October to last month, Winbond saw its net income reach NT$30 million (US$1.03 million), plunging 98.42 percent from NT$1.9 billion in the previous three months. Fourth-quarter revenues fell 10 percent to NT$7.74 billion from the previous quarter. On a yearly basis, fourth-quarter profit fell 91.23 percent, but quarterly revenues rose nearly 19 percent.
On Monday, larger rival Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) reported a net loss of NT$10.12 billion in the fourth quarter, while Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技) posted a net loss of NT$4.60 billion for the quarter.
“Fourth-quarter revenues and net income fell due to seasonality factors and ASP drop,” Winbond said yesterday in a statement.
Strong price competition in the NOR flash market led to a gross margin of 12 percent in the fourth quarter, down from the 24 percent seen in the previous quarter.
However, with an increasing focus on special DRAM and flash memory chips that have better margins: “Winbond holds a cautious and positive perspective on 2011 business,” the company said.
About 91 percent of the firm’s sales in the fourth quarter came from specialty DRAM, mobile RAM and NOR flash memory chips, as commodity DRAM’s share has been declining on a quarterly basis, the company said.
By product categories, -specialty DRAM accounted for 35 percent of last quarter’s sales, followed by Mobile RAM’s 29 percent and NOR Flash’s 27 percent. In terms of product performance, mobile RAM outperformed other products on the back of strong demand for cellphone application, the statement said.
The company said it aimed to continue technology migration in mobile RAM to a 65 nanometer (nm) process and start 46nm low-power DRAM development to strengthen competitiveness. It also plans to start mass production of the 46nm specialty DRAM in the second half of the year, hoping that can help offset the impact of chip prices.
For the whole of last year, Winbond reported a net income of NT$3.55 billion, or earnings per share of NT$0.97. In 2009, the company saw a net loss of NT$8.61 billion, or losses per share of NT$2.36. Cumulative revenue from January last year to last month totaled NT$31.86 billion, up 63 percent year-on-year, with a gross margin of 20 percent.
Shares of Winbond rose 2.37 percent yesterday to NT$10.8 ahead of the release of its latest financial results. Over the past 12 months, the stock has climbed 30.12 percent, compared with the TAIEX’s 18.85 percent increase.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the