Macronix International Co (
Macronix may report a net income of NT$639.8 million (US$18.5 million), or NT$0.17 a share, in the three months to June 30, compared with a net income of NT$1.6 billion in the year-ago period, according to the average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales fell to NT$5.2 billion from NT$6.3 billion. The company will announce earnings today at 12:30pm local time.
Almost a third of Macronix' sales were to Nintendo Co, whose introduction of the GameCube video-game console in September will boost Macronix's net income in the third quarter, analysts said.
"We will see some improvement in profit," said Keon Han, an analyst with Bear Stearns & Co. "Nintendo's on track to deliver the GameCube."
Macronix makes flash memory chips that store software programs in games and other consumer electronics products until they are erased or upgraded. The company also makes so-called mask ROM, or read-only memory, chips that permanently store software.
While falling prices of flash-memory chips have hurt profits at Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc, the impact on Macronix, which also supplies chips to Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and Palm Inc, should be less because it makes products for a niche in which there are few rivals, analysts said.
"Macronix's chips are not mainstream flash memory for cell phones like Intel and AMD," said Andrew Lu, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney Securities Taiwan. Prices for Macronix' chips are expected to fall about 65 percent this year after plummeting 50 percent in the first half, he said.
Some investors said they are watching for indications of a recovery in the third quarter, which may come with increased sales to Nintendo.
"I'm still waiting for a signal of improvement," said Lu Yi-fen, who helps manage US$113 million in equities at First Global Hitech Fund, 4 percent of which are Macronix shares. "Nintendo should help bring more business to Macronix." Expansion Macronix said it plans to spend about US$5.9 billion to build two plants that will make 300mm silicon wafers by 2004.
The dinner-plate-sized wafers will cut production costs up to 30 percent from the 200mm wafers more commonly made today by more than doubling the number of chips yielded.
About a quarter of Macronix's capacity was idle in the second quarter, analysts said. The company has kept its plants running closer to full production than larger Taiwanese chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
TSMC and UMC used less than half of their capacity in the second quarter as global chip demand fell.
Chipmakers boost profitability by keeping capacity use in their plants as close to 100 percent as possible, thereby avoiding depreciation costs.
Macronix' capacity use benefits from the company's strategy of making custom memory chips for games and other electronic products, according to Miin Wu (
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique