MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s largest handset chip designer, said yesterday revenue in the third quarter of this year is projected to grow between 13 percent and 18 percent from the second quarter, following the launch of new products and strong demand for smartphone chips.
That would mean a quarterly revenue of between NT$26.50 billion (US$883.33 million) and NT$27.70 billion, compared with NT$23.44 billion in the second quarter.
The company’s net income was NT$3.36 billion in the second quarter, an increase of 34.3 percent from the previous quarter, and 0.9 percent from the same quarter last year.
Earnings per share (EPS) for the second quarter was NT$2.95, compared with NT$2.19 in the previous quarter and NT$3.05 in the same quarter of last year, according to the company’s financial data.
CHINA GROWTH
MediaTek said second-quarter revenue rose 19.5 percent sequentially and 11.7 percent from the same period last year, primarily driven by the fast-growing smartphone demand in China.
However, gross margin for the quarter was 40.8 percent, down 1.3 percent and 5.1 percentage points from the previous quarter and the same period of last year respectively. The company attributed that fall to fierce price competition in the market.
“Shipments of smartphone chips continued to be a great contributor to growth in the second quarter, representing a significant upswing from the first quarter,” MediaTek president Hsieh Ching-jiang (謝清江) said.
A total of 21 million smartphone chips were shipped in the second quarter, he said, adding that the firm expected the figure to grow to 30 million this quarter.
Total smartphone chip shipments are likely to reach 95 million units this year, of which between 50 percent and 60 percent will be 3G chips and the remainder 2G chips, he said.
SMART TV CHIPS
As for smart TV chips, Hsieh said revenue in the second quarter dropped in Europe, but grew in China, where the impact of a TV subsidy program is expected to show in the third quarter and become a driver for the company’s smart TV chip sales.
On the subject of the acquisition of local rival MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體), Hsieh said the merger would enhance MediaTek’s international competitiveness and indicated that he expected the synergy effects to take hold in the first quarter of next year, once the consolidation process is completed.
Looking forward to the third quarter, the peak hot season for chipmakers, Hsieh said he remained cautious about the economic outlook because consumers were expressing concerns over the global economy and the global semiconductor market was weaker than in previous years.
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
RSS