MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s biggest handset chip supplier, yesterday posted a 7.67 percent decline in revenue for last month, but Credit Suisse Securities said the company was still on track to meet the high end of its sales guidance for this quarter.
Revenue dropped to NT$12.92 billion (US$436 million) last month, compared with NT$13.89 billion in October, but rose 48.17 percent from NT$8.65 billion in November last year.
The result was “slightly below our November estimate of NT$13.9 billion, or a 3.5 percent drop month-on-month,” Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams said in a report yesterday.
“We believe sales in the fourth quarter of this year are still tracking to the upper end of guidance driven by stronger-than-expected smartphone and tablet orders for quad-core and octa-core [chips] and overseas market demand,” Abrams said.
MediaTek’s new octa-core chip has been adopted by China’s Lenovo (聯想), Coolpad (酷派), Huawei (華為) and ZTE (中興), as well as by India’s Intex Technologies, according to Abrams.
Abrams predicted that MediaTek revenue will this month drop 4 percent from last month to NT$12.3 billion. However, the company could still reach the high end of its revenue forecast of NT$39 billion for this quarter, he said.
MediaTek’s gross margin is likely to hit the high end of its forecast ranging between 43 percent and 45 percent in the current quarter, given the improvement in its product mix, he added.
In the next quarter, the company could see revenue grow 4.3 percent from this quarter as it is set to merge on Feb. 1 with MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體), the world’s biggest supplier of chips used in flat-panel TVs, according to Credit Suisse.
The brokerage retains its “outperform” rating on MediaTek’s shares with a target price of NT$480, implying an 11.62 percent upside from the stock’s closing price of NT$430 yesterday.
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