Taiwanese semiconductor companies can expect annual revenue growth of nearly 5 percent this year thanks to a slightly better-than-expected rebound in the prices of computer memory chips, a local research house forecast.
The latest forecast represents an upward adjustment from the 4.4 percent annual growth rate that had been projected by the Hsinchu-based Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) three months ago.
“Prices of computer chips, or dynamic random access memory [DRAM], hit the bottom in the second quarter, which will help retard the decline in local DRAM makers’ overall revenues,” ITRI semiconductor analyst Jerry Peng (彭茂榮) said by phone.
Local DRAM companies are expected to report an 11 percent drop in revenues to NT$253.7 billion (US$8 billion) this year, better than the previous estimate of a 14 percent decline, as the supply glut eases, the report said.
“We are still quite conservative about the second half because of the sustained impact of the global economic slowdown and rising inflation,” Peng said.
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s second-largest DRAM maker, said the US subprime lending crisis and mounting inflation have hurt consumers’ purchasing power in the PC and consumer electronics sector.
The company said it would be an uphill battle to make a turnaround this quarter after a more than one-year slump.
This year, local semiconductor companies may see their revenues rise 4.8 percent to NT$1.54 trillion from last year, according to the ITRI’s latest report. It did not provide last year’s figures.
DRAM chip suppliers and contract chipmakers may account for 48 percent of local semiconductor companies’ total revenues, the report said.
Chip packagers, led by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光半導體), are expected to outpace semiconductor companies in other fields to report 10.3 percent year-on-year growth to NT$253.7 billion in revenues this year, the ITRI forecast said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s top contract chipmaker, last month trimmed its forecast for the global semiconductor industry’s revenue growth for this year to an annual increase of 4 percent, compared with a previous estimate of between 4 percent and 6 percent growth.
“Demand seems to be going down,” TSMC chief executive Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told investors last month.
Neverheless, TSMC would outperform its peers by several percentage points, Tsai said.
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