Chipmaker MediaTek Inc (聯發科), which supplies handset chips mainly to Chinese firms such as ZTE Corp (中興), yesterday said it expects to post at least 25 percent in sequential revenue growth this quarter, given the strong demand resulting from the Workers’ Day holiday.
The company made the forecast at an investors’ conference, predicting that its growth momentum would pick up firmly from a seasonally slack first quarter.
In the first quarter, MediaTek saw its net income shrink 16.6 percent to NT$3.74 billion (US$125.86 million), from NT$4.48 billion in the final quarter of last year. On an annual basis, the figure increased 51 percent from NT$2.48 billion.
This quarter, revenue will expand to between NT$30 billion and NT$31.6 billion, which would be a 25 percent to 32 percent increase from last quarter’s NT$23.97 billion, MediaTek president Hsieh Ching-jiang (謝清江) said.
“Because of the Workers’ Day holiday in China and demand from some customers for early inventory buildup for next quarter, we are seeing significant growth for all products in the second quarter. Demand for smartphone [chips] is particularly strong,” Hsieh said.
Smartphone chip shipments are expected to soar by as much as 43 percent this quarter to 50 million units from 35 million units last quarter, with the contribution from new advanced quad-core chips, dubbed MT6589 chips, set to increase to 20 percent from 10 percent, Hsieh said.
Smartphone chips are MediaTek’s biggest source of revenue, accounting for about 45 percent of earnings last quarter, the company said.
Rising demand for advanced smartphone chips and a slow price reduction pace of about 5 percent may help boost the company’s gross margin to its highest level in five quarters at 43.5 percent this quarter, from 42.1 percent last quarter, the chipmaker said.
MediaTek maintained its smartphone chip shipments target at 200 million units for the year, but raised its shipments target for tablet chips to 15 million units from the 10 million units it had estimated previously.
Separately, the chipmaker said its board had approved a plan to distribute NT$9 in cash dividends per share to its shareholders, based on last year’s net income of NT$15.69 billion, or NT$12.9 per share. The distribution represented a cash dividend yield of 2.42 percent.
Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Eric Chen (陳慧明) yesterday said the company’s “revenue guidance is surprisingly good and what is more important is that its gross margin is going up.”
Chen, who forecast MediaTek’s revenue would grow 17 percent this year, retained his “buy” rating and target price at NT$415 on MediaTek shares, implying a rise of about 11 percent in the next six months based on the stock’s closing price of NT$372.5 yesterday.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
RSS