Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) yesterday reported a net loss of NT$326 million (US$10.87 million) in the second quarter, nearly half of the NT$646 million loss it made in the first quarter, as the company continued adjusting its product mix and customer structure.
The second-quarter figure marked the company’s fourth consecutive quarterly loss since the Hsinchu-based memorychip maker reported a net profit of NT$269 million in the same period last year, the company’s financial statement showed.
Loss per share was NT$0.08 in the second quarter, which was narrowed down from a loss per share of NT$0.18 in the prior quarter but represented a sharp decline from earnings per share of NT$0.08 a year earlier.
Revenue for the second quarter totaled NT$6.79 billion, up 16.86 percent quarter-on-quarter, thanks to rising shipments of its chips across the board, which was led by a 25 percent increase in NOR flash revenue on growing demand for handheld devices, Winbond said in a statement.
However, the overall revenue in the second quarter was still 8.48 percent less than that of a year ago.
“Winbond will continue to drive revenue growth and improve profitability by expanding its tier-1 customer base and increasing 58 nanometer [nm] product shipments,” the company said in the statement.
Gross margin rose to 6.46 percent last quarter from 5.09 percent in the first quarter, but lagged far behind the 16.63 percent in the second quarter of last year.
With weak global demand for PCs, uncertainty about Europe’s debt problem and customers digesting excessive inventories, Winbond said it was cautious about the outlook for the second half of the year and adjusted downward its capital expenditure by 25 percent to NT$2.7 billion this year from the NT$3.6 billion target set in April.
For this quarter, the company said it was optimistic about the business of NOR flash, but forecast revenue contributions from specialty DRAM and mobile RAM to be flat from last quarter.
In the second quarter, specialty DRAM chips accounted for 44 percent of the total revenue, down from 45 percent in the first quarter. NOR flash memorychips made up 42 percent of Winbond’s revenue, compared with 39 percent in the first quarter, while mobile RAM revenue took about 13 percent of the total, down from 16 percent in the previous quarter.
“Winbond will continue to migrate to more advanced technology and develop new markets in order to pursue stable business growth and better profits,” the company said in its statement.
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