ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), the nation's third-largest maker of computer memory chips, said its third-quarter net income reached NT$5.91 billion (US$177.89 million), or NT$1.12 per share, according to a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The NT$5.91 billion net income represents a quarterly figure record and is more than 29 times the amount it reported during the same period of last year.
Revenues totaled NT$18.23 billion in the third quarter, up 135.8 percent from NT$7.73 billion a year earlier, driven by increased production using 90-nanometer processing technology and rising prices for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, ProMOS said.
The company reported NT$11.65 billion revenues for the second quarter and NT$7.91 billion for the first quarter.
NT$1.23 per share
For the first nine months ending Sept. 30, the company's revenues totaled NT$37.812 billion, with net profit of NT$6.48 billion, or NT$1.23 per share, according to the Hsinchu-based company.
Its gross margin, 41.58 percent in the third quarter, up from 24.52 percent in the previous quarter, was attributable to lower marketing costs, declining DRAM chip prices and increased efficiency in 90-nanometer production, the Chinese-language Web site cnYES.com reported yesterday, citing ProMOS spokesman Ben Tseng (曾邦助).
The company achieved a gross margin as high as 47 percent last month, the report added.
Last week, the nation's largest memory chipmaker, Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), reported an all-time high third-quarter net income of NT$7.79 billion, or NT$1.29 per share.
Looking ahead, ProMOS said it expected the growth momentum to extend into the three months between this month and December, with rising demand for personal computers, mobile phones and game players that need more memory to process data.
ProMOS shares dropped 1.15 percent to NT$12.95 on the GRETAI Securities Market yesterday, underperforming against the benchmark TAIEX, which showed a 0.31 percent decline.
Buy Rating
But Goldman Sachs maintained a "buy" recommendation and a 12-month target price of NT$19 on ProMOS on return-on-equity recovery from 11 percent this year to 21 percent next year.
The American investment firm estimated ProMOS would earn NT$1.17 per share this year, and NT$2.8 next year and NT$3.28 for 2008, Helen Huang (黃玉惠), executive director of Goldman Sachs' Asia-Pacific Investment Research, said in a report released yesterday.
ProMOS earned NT$0.19 per share last year.
The market is concerned about an oversupply next year, after Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top chipmaker, said on Wednesday that its DRAM growth for next year will be 90 percent to 95 percent from this year.
The worst case scenario for the market would be for demand to increase 55 percent while supply grows 60 percent, but Huang said the possibility of that scenario is below 10 percent.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS