Macronix International Co (旺宏電子), which supplies memory chips for Japanese video game console maker Nintendo Co, yesterday posted a loss of NT$1.66 billion (US$49.2 million) last quarter as gross margin fell to its lowest in six quarters due to low utilization and sagging demand.
Last quarter’s figures brought Macronix’s total losses last year to NT$4.19 billion, an improvement compared with losses of NT$6.45 billion in 2014. The chipmaker lost NT$949 million in the third quarter last year.
In the final quarter last year, gross margin fell to 8 percent, compared with 14 percent the previous quarter after utilization fell from 90 percent to 70 percent.
“By lowering production, we aim to bring down our inventory to a level of NT$5 billion from NT$9 billion,” company president Lu Chih-yuan (盧志遠) said.
After a long term of incurring losses, the company is likely to get out of the woods this year thanks to revenue growth and reducing manufacturing equipment depreciation costs by 67 percent to about NT$2 billion from last year’s NT$6 billion, Lu said.
“We aim to return to profit in the second half of this year,” Lu said. “We are gaining market share this year on the back of improved costs and better technological capabilities, despite not seeing any encouraging signs [of a recovery] in the macroeconomic situation.”
Macronix would eke out a monthly profit when its monthly revenue reaches NT$2 billion, Lu said.
The company expects to become the world’s top NOR Flash memory chip supplier this year, replacing Cypress Semiconductor Corp.
NOR flash memory chips are Macronix’s biggest revenue source, accounting for 62 percent of last year’s revenue of NT$20.93 billion, company data showed.
The automotive and industrial sectors would show the strongest growth for NOR flash chips this year, Lu said.
Macronix counts the world’s top 10 car brands as its customers.
The automotive and industrial sectors made up 19 percent of Macronix’s revenue last quarter and would soon rise to more than 20 percent, Lu said.
Lu said the company’s major client is developing a new platform for its video game device this year, which could provide a boost to the company’s business.
Last year, sluggish sales of video game devices resulted in an annual decline of 45 percent in revenue for the company’s ROM chip, according to company financial statement.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”