Adata Technology Co (威剛科技), the nation’s biggest DRAM module supplier, yesterday said net profit tumbled about 60 percent last quarter from a quarter ago, as memory chip price hikes subsided due to seasonal slack PC demand.
Net profit sank to NT$310 million (US$10.3 million) during the quarter ending June 30, compared with NT$778 million in the first quarter, while earnings per share fell to NT$1.42 from NT$0.41.
The company’s gross margin shrank 11.26 percent last quarter, from 18.19 percent in the first quarter of the year.
Photo: Hung Yu-fang, Taipei Times
However, the company said it expects a quick recovery this quarter, supported by constrained supply of DRAM and NAND flash modules.
Supply of NAND flash memory chips might further be capped by the slow ramp-up of new 3D NAND flash memory chip production by major global suppliers, Adata said.
“The company has hit bottom in the second quarter in terms of profitability,” Adata said in a company statement. “Profits in the third quarter will be better than in the second quarter.”
The company forecast that short supply of DRAM chips would prompt a new wave of price hikes of perhaps more than 10 percent quarter-on-quarter this quarter, as seasonal demand picks up after a short break in the second quarter.
Net profit in the first half of the year more than quadrupled year-on-year to NT$1.1 billion, from NT$208.46 million in the same period last year. Earnings per share also rose to NT$5.04 from NT$0.97.
Gross margin improved to 14.82 percent in the first half, from 7 percent in the previous year.
Adata yesterday posted 4.72 percent drop in revenue for last month at NT$2.62 billion from NT$2.75 billion in June. That represented an annual growth of 45.44 percent from NT$1.8 billion.
DRAM modules accounted for 53.9 percent of last month’s overall revenue, while NAND flash memory modules made up 21.9 percent, the company said.
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