VIA Technologies (
After the world's second largest chipset designer's August revenue had risen by over a third over the previous month to a record NT$3.80 billion, the market had been anticipating revenue this month would break the NT$4 billion mark. Instead, VIA said in a statement that while lower than expected, revenue should still exceed NT$3 billion.
The lower than expected September revenue was nothing unusual, VIA said. "Our customers will decrease shipments from VIA at this time to prevent too much inventory figures in their third quarter financial statement," said Richard Chang, manager of the president's office at VIA.
The VIA statement comes at a time when numerous finance houses are predicting a slowdown in PC demand growth and less than a week after Intel Corp issued a profit warning in which it blamed slower than expected PC demand in Europe. High oil prices and a weak euro are adding to the slowdown, analysts said.
Following the release of the statement in the last hour of trading yesterday, VIA's stock price slid from NT$369 to a close of NT$355. The stock fell 6.33 percent in total. The stock price has fallen by nearly a fifth in the last 13 days of trading.
Nevertheless, Richard Chang maintained that demand for VIA's products remained strong. "I think Intel's profit warning was not only because of a decrease in PC demand," he said. "Their product line hasn't gone so well and they have made some structural changes." Meanwhile, VIA's chipset business in particular remained strong, he said.
VIA's customers may indeed be smartening up their inventories in preparation for their third quarter financial statements, analysts said. However, a reluctance to carry a large inventory was a sure indication that slowing demand was also a factor in VIA's lower than expected September earnings.
"Why do they want to clean up their inventory?" asked Abraham Leu, head of Asian technology at Prudential-Bache. "Because they have built up too much inventory," he said.
If demand were normal, motherboard makers wouldn't be bothered about a high inventory. But now, inventory is too high as they can't get more orders, said Leu. "PC demand is slowing down inevitably," he said.
Eric Chen, an analyst at SG Securities, agreed. Motherboard makers aren't going to earn as much revenue as expected in September because of slowing PC demand, he said. And that's going to have an effect on orders for VIA's chipsets.
"I would guess VIA's revenue will be about NT$3.5 billion" for September, said Chen.
But VIA insisted otherwise. After the blip in September, revenue during the fourth quarter peak season could well reach a record high. "I think maybe it will happen in October," said Richard Chang.
Huang Han-wei, an analyst at Fubon Securities, also predicted October's revenue could exceed August's record figures. "VIA's clients could afford to be conservative over orders in September because, unlike in the first half of the year, there's no chipset shortage," he said. The slower than expected September revenue was therefore normal and should pick up again in October. "It's not absolutely definite that PC demand growth is affecting VIA," he said.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS