MediaTek Inc (聯發科) said yesterday that last month’s revenues were its strongest in 11 months, adding that seasonal demand would continue to boost sales of its chips for handsets and televisions.
Revenue grew for the fourth straight month to NT$8.31 billion (US$285 million) last month, up 16.39 percent from NT$7.14 billion in July, the nation’s top handset chip designer said. That beat Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Eric Chen’s (陳慧明) forecast of between 7 percent and 10 percent monthly growth.
In a best-case scenario, the data implies that MediaTek could surpass its third-quarter revenue forecast, or it would increase revenue by more than 10 percent to NT$23 billion this quarter, from NT$20.98 billion in the second quarter, according to Daiwa’s report on Aug. 24.
If it makes at least NT$7.55 billion in sales this month, MediaTek’s revenue would likely exceed NT$23 billion this quarter.
Chen said he expected MediaTek’s gross margin to bottom out this quarter, compared with last quarter’s 45.9 percent, adding that he also expected the margin to improve further next quarter, helped by growing shipments of higher-margin handset chips supporting new technologies.
On an annual basis, MediaTek’s revenue last month was down 17.23 percent from NT$10.04 billion a year ago.
Meanwhile, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s biggest chip packager, yesterday said revenue grew 2.9 percent to NT$15.86 billion last month from July’s NT$15.42 billion, but down 8.4 percent year-on-year from NT$17.31 billion.
This quarter, ASE expected total revenue to grow by between 3 percent and 6 percent, at a slower-than-seasonal pace, from NT$32 billion in the second quarter. Demand from the communications sector would be the strongest, followed by the consumer and PC sectors, the company told an investors conference last month.
Macronix International Co Ltd (旺宏電子), which supplies chips to Japanese game console maker Nintendo Co, also said yesterday that its revenue increased 10 percent month-on-month to NT$2.21 billion, from July’s NT$2 billion, but added that it was down more than 18 percent from NT$2.7 billion last year.
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