Powertech Technology Inc (PTI, 力成), a memorychip tester and packager, yesterday posted better-than-expected 50 percent sequential growth in net profit for last quarter, but said this quarter would be flat due to supply constraints in DRAM chips and inventory correction on smartphone chipmakers.
Last quarter, net profit surged to NT$898 million (US$29.9 million), or NT$1.18 per share, compared with NT$597 million, or NT$0.78 a share, in the first quarter, according to a company financial statement.
Last quarter’s net income beat Credit Suisse’s estimate of NT$715 million and the consensus of NT$731 million.
“The company’s second-quarter results are better than our expectations in terms of revenue and profit after being caught in a trough for a period of time. The company is back on [the growth] track this year,” company chairman Tsai Du-kung (蔡篤恭) told investors yesterday.
Revenue this year is expected to rebound to the level recorded in 2011, when PTI generated NT$39.45 billion, as the company has fully recovered from the financial woes caused by the insolvency of its top client, Elpida Memory Inc.
Elpida filed for bankruptcy protection in February, 2012, before it was acquired by US memorychip giant Micron Technology Inc in July last year.
“We have overcome the difficulties,” Tsai said.
Orders from Elpida once accounted for 70 percent of PTI’s revenue at its peak, he said.
This quarter, revenue is expected to be flat, or slightly better than last quarter’s NT$10.58 billion, Tsai said.
He said the quarterly forecast was conservative because the tight supply of PC and mobile DRAM chips and unsustainable demand for smartphones would limit its growth momentum this quarter.
Demand for another type of memory chip, NAND flash, would continue to be robust this quarter, supported by rising demand for high-end data storage, solid-state drives (SSD) for smartphones, Tsai added.
The revenue projection fell slightly short of a 5 percent sequential growth predicted by Credit Suisse.
PTI also expects gross margin to be unchanged this quarter, compared with 17.9 percent last quarter, after an improvement from the first quarter’s 14.1 percent.
Commenting on recent speculation that Toshiba Corp may pick ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂科技) as its new supplier of NAND flash chip testing and packaging services, Tsai said: “The long-standing partnership between PTI and Toshiba will not be affected by such speculation.”
Toshiba and US DRAM module maker Kingston Technology Corp are PTI’s two biggest customers.
To reduce the risk of potential adverse impact from customers, PTI is managing to maintain its top client’s revenue contribution at about 30 percent.
This year, PTI plans to spend NT$7 billion on new facilities and equipment in a bid to boost capacity in advanced logic IC packaging service.
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