Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s top DRAM chipmaker, yesterday said revenues last month surged 26.3 percent, while shipments rose 30 percent, amid strong restocking demand from its PC contract customers.
Revenues expanded to NT$3.24 billion (US$110 million) from January’s NT$2.57 billion, hitting their highest level in nine months.
Nanya Technology joined local peer Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) in reporting better monthly revenues. Powerchip on Friday said sales rose 5.56 percent from the previous month.
On an annual basis, however, Nanya Technology’s revenues tumbled 28.17 percent from NT$3.55 billion in February last year.
Company spokesman Pai Pei-lin (白培霖) said he expected to see an uptick in chip prices this month, helped by recovering demand and reduced supply after Japan-based Elpida Memory Inc filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Nanya Technology and Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a local DRAM chip joint venture between Nanya Technology and US chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, are considered the biggest beneficiaries of the demise of Elpida, the world’s No. 4 DRAM chip supplier by market share.
Elpida’s customers will seek alternative suppliers in the coming months to ensure a sufficient supply of DRAM products, market researcher IHS iSuppli said in a report dated Friday.
“While every DRAM company likely will gain market share as customers seek reliable alternative suppliers, Micron and Nanya Technology are expected to realize the greatest gains,” IHS iSuppli analyst Mike Howard said in the report.
Howard expected Inotera’s production to return to full capacity because of an incremental increase in demand from its stakeholders Micron and Nanya Technology. Inotera is currently operating at less than full capacity, he said.
Global PC DRAM chip prices are expected to rise more than 15 percent year-on-year to US$1.21 per unit by the end of this year, if more than one-fourth of Elpida’s manufacturing capacity is taken off-line because of the bankruptcy filing, Howard forecast.
Inotera yesterday said revenues last month dropped 8.1 percent to NT$2.59 billion from NT$2.82 billion in January as it trimmed production and because of fewer working days.
That is its weakest monthly revenues in more than two years since it made NT$2.58 billion in June 2009. Compared with February last year, revenues slipped 5.4 percent from NT$2.74 billion.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last