Powertech Technology Inc (力成), a memorychip tester and packager, yesterday said it expects sales this quarter to grow mildly from last quarter’s NT$10.75 billion (US$329 million).
The company made the forecast after reporting the highest net income last quarter for the past 13 quarters.
“Though the semiconductor industry faces a sharp slowdown in demand this year, Powertech maintains an optimistic view about the business outlook due to robust demand from main clients,” company president JY Hung (洪嘉鍮) told an investors’ conference, without providing a sales estimate for this quarter.
Hung said sales by Powertech’s DRAM segment, which contributed 31 percent of the firm’s total revenue last quarter, are expected to increase this quarter from last quarter thanks to growing demand for DRAM used in mobile and graphics devices, and positive demand for commodity DRAM.
The company foresees revenue from its flash-memory business, which contributed 42 percent of total revenues last quarter, to continue growing this quarter, supported by robust demand for high-end mobile devices, Hung said.
The demand for solid-state drives is expected to be flattish from last quarter, he added.
Powertech expects revenue from its logic IC segment to jump significantly this quarter from last quarter, fueled by the growing shipments of clients’ new high-end projects, Hung said.
“We foresee sales from the logic IC segment increasing by a double-digit percentage quarterly and the growth momentum extending to the first quarter of next year,” he said.
“Production for the logic IC segment is running at full capacity at the moment,” Hung added.
Overall, new projects and stable growth from main product lines among clients leads the firm to expect quarterly revenue this quarter to be better than last quarter and gross margin to continue improving from last quarter’s 19.2 percent, he said.
Last quarter, Powertech’s net income grew 14.3 percent annually and 18.3 percent quarterly to NT$1.09 billion, mainly driven by its DRAM and flash-memory segments, Hung said.
Earnings per share were NT$1.42, compared with NT$1.25 per share last year and NT$1.18 per share in the prior quarter, the company said.
Gross margin of 19.2 percent last quarter also showed an annual increase of 1.2 percentage points and a quarterly growth of 0.5 percentage points, it added.
Powertech’s quarterly revenue, net income and gross margin were its best quarterly performance in the past 13 quarters, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Powertech shares gained 0.77 percent to close at NT$65.3 in Taipei trading yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX, which lost 0.5 percent.
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