Micron Technology Inc, the largest US maker of memorychips, reported a wider fourth-quarter loss and lower revenue as lackluster demand for personal computers reduced sales of components.
The net loss for the period that ended on Aug. 30 was US$243 million, or US$0.24 a share, compared with a loss of US$135 million, or US$0.14, a year earlier, the Boise, Idaho-based company said on Thursday in a filing. Revenue fell 8.3 percent to US$1.96 billion.
WEAK DEMAND
Shrinking demand for PCs sent sales of DRAM chips down 9 percent in the quarter, Micron said. Weak demand for parts is a bad sign, especially in the period before the holiday season and ahead of an updated version of Microsoft Corp’s Windows, which traditionally has stoked shipments, JMP Securities LLC analyst Alex Gauna said.
NO WINDOWS BOOST
“It’s concerning, not just for Micron, but for anyone that’s touching it,” Gauna said. “What’s really concerning is the lack of uptick around Windows 8.”
Micron also makes so-called NAND flash memorychips, used to store data in smartphones, which declined in price by an average of 5 percent, the company said.
The slowing of expansion plans by the memorychip industry and elimination of another competitor when Micron completes the ¥200 billion (US$2.57 billion) takeover of Elpida Memory Inc will improve prices next year as demand and supply are better aligned, RBC Capital Markets analyst Doug Freedman wrote in a research note.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by