Adata Technology Co (威剛科技), the nation’s biggest DRAM module supplier, yesterday said net profit tumbled about 60 percent last quarter from a quarter ago, as memory chip price hikes subsided due to seasonal slack PC demand.
Net profit sank to NT$310 million (US$10.3 million) during the quarter ending June 30, compared with NT$778 million in the first quarter, while earnings per share fell to NT$1.42 from NT$0.41.
The company’s gross margin shrank 11.26 percent last quarter, from 18.19 percent in the first quarter of the year.
Photo: Hung Yu-fang, Taipei Times
However, the company said it expects a quick recovery this quarter, supported by constrained supply of DRAM and NAND flash modules.
Supply of NAND flash memory chips might further be capped by the slow ramp-up of new 3D NAND flash memory chip production by major global suppliers, Adata said.
“The company has hit bottom in the second quarter in terms of profitability,” Adata said in a company statement. “Profits in the third quarter will be better than in the second quarter.”
The company forecast that short supply of DRAM chips would prompt a new wave of price hikes of perhaps more than 10 percent quarter-on-quarter this quarter, as seasonal demand picks up after a short break in the second quarter.
Net profit in the first half of the year more than quadrupled year-on-year to NT$1.1 billion, from NT$208.46 million in the same period last year. Earnings per share also rose to NT$5.04 from NT$0.97.
Gross margin improved to 14.82 percent in the first half, from 7 percent in the previous year.
Adata yesterday posted 4.72 percent drop in revenue for last month at NT$2.62 billion from NT$2.75 billion in June. That represented an annual growth of 45.44 percent from NT$1.8 billion.
DRAM modules accounted for 53.9 percent of last month’s overall revenue, while NAND flash memory modules made up 21.9 percent, the company said.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
RSS