Mosel Vitelic Inc (茂矽電子), Taiwan's fifth-largest computer memory-chip maker, said its second-quarter loss will be larger than its NT$2.9 billion (US$88 million) forecast, after global chip prices slumped.
"It'll be a little worse than that," Mosel Finance Manager Susan Lin (林素貞) said in an interview, without giving a new forecast.
Still, "our third-quarter loss should just about meet forecast." Mosel, Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) and other Taiwan chipmakers that depend on the US computer market for sales, are hurting after memory chip prices slid by 27 percent in the second quarter.
While chipmakers are taking heart from a 15 percent rise in the price of benchmark dynamic random access memory chips this month, investors say the rebound may not last because personal computer demand has failed to meet expectations.
"Prices will rise for a month or two because of fake demand, as distributors replenish stocks, then start falling again because of weak demand," said Bill Lin (林頌賢), who manages US$15 million in stocks at United Securities Investment Trust Corp (聯合投信).
Mosel shares were up 1.3 percent in mid-morning trading, at NT$11.35 as Lin said few investors expected Mosel would improve on its loss forecast.
Benchmark DRAM prices have risen to US$2.82 from as low as US$2.03 on May 10, according to prices tracked by DramExchange.com, a Taiwan-based clearing house for the chips, which operate at a speed of 133mHz, with capacity for 128Mb of memory.
Mosel was forced to increase the number of shares it will offer in a planned sale next month to raise NT$6.5 billion after the chip-price slump drove its share price down 36 percent since March.
Mosel announced in March that it would sell 400 million shares to raise money to repay bonds due in the first half of next year and in 2005. The size of the sale has since been raised to 650 million shares to raise about the same amount of money.
Mosel posted a NT$5.6 billion pre-tax loss in the second quarter of 2001. It's forecasting a loss of NT$1.5 billion in the third quarter, narrowing from NT$6.2 billion, on an expected rebound in prices.
Nanya, Taiwan's largest computer memory-chip maker, last week reported a NT$1.18 billion pre-tax loss for the second quarter.
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