MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s biggest handset chip supplier, yesterday reported that revenue last month rose 37 percent from a year ago, after the company said shipments of higher-priced smartphone chips would grow significantly this quarter.
Revenue grew to NT$6.23 billion (US$211 million) last month, from NT$4.53 billion a year earlier, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing before the market opened.
On a monthly comparison basis, revenue last month rose about 21 percent from January’s NT$5.16 billion, which was the lowest level in almost a year.
The good news sent MediaTek’s share price up 1.95 percent to close at NT$314, bucking the downtrend on the broader stock market. The TAIEX lost 0.83 percent.
Nonetheless, first-quarter revenue is expected to fall by between 10 percent and 15 percent to between NT$19.2 billion and NT$20.4 billion from NT$22.63 billion in the final quarter of last year, hurt by weak consumption in emerging markets and fewer working days, the Hsinchu-based chipmaker said last month.
Mobile phone chips accounted for 65 percent of MediaTek’s overall revenues last quarter.
MediaTek expects Chinese handset brands to start adopting its latest smartphone chips this quarter, which would help boost the company’s smartphone chip shipments by 67 percent to 10 million units this quarter from 6 million units in the final quarter of last year.
The company said smartphone chips would be a major growth driver this year, offsetting falling demand for chips used in feature phones.
MediaTek has also signed an agreement with US chip company Rambus Inc to settle a two-year-long patent infringement lawsuit in the US, the company said in another exchange filing.
Based on the agreement, MediaTek will have the right to use Rambus’ patents in manufacturing its products. No financial details about the patent licensing were disclosed.
“The settlement and the patent licensing agreement will not significantly impact the company’s finances, nor its operations,” MediaTek spokesman David Ku (顧大為) said in the filing.
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