Phison Electronics Corp (群聯電子), a designer of NAND flash memory controllers and modules, yesterday reported that revenue last quarter grew 11 percent from a year earlier on the back of new orders from Japan’s largest pachinko maker.
Revenue last quarter expanded to NT$10.86 billion (US$366.82 million) from NT$9.79 billion a year earlier, Phison said.
However, on a quarterly basis, revenue slumped 15.62 percent from NT$12.87 billion, it said.
The Miaoli-based company said that it is benefiting from growing demand for solid-state drives (SSDs) used in devices beyond computers, which is stimulating growth for the NAND flash memory industry.
Pachinko machines are one of the new growth areas, it said.
“Pachinko makers started equipping their machines with NAND storage products, such as SSDs, in recent years to cope with higher-resolution animations used on the machines,” Phison chairman Pua Khein-seng (潘健成) said in a statement.
“Phison last year received orders from Japan’s largest pachinko brand and began shipments this year. The orders will have a positive effect on Phison’s revenue and profit,” Pua said.
Phison’s shipments of chip controllers used in SSDs and embedded multimedia cards last month surged 50 percent year-on-year, bringing its overall shipments of chip controllers used in those two devices to a historical high last quarter, it said.
Separately yesterday, Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) said its revenue rose 0.87 percent to NT$4.13 billion last month from NT$4.09 billion a year earlier.
Revenue last quarter grew about 6 percent annually and 10.39 percent quarterly to NT$12.75 billion, it said.
Local peer Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) also reported a 24 percent annual increase in revenue to NT$9.28 billion for last quarter.
However, the figure represented a 1.49 percent quarterly decline.
Meanwhile, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said that the COVID-19 pandemic has curtailed demand for smartphones, which might lead to less consumption of DRAM and NAND flash memory chips.
As demand shrinks, DRAM chip prices are to slump 10 to 15 percent this year, while NAND flash memory chip prices are to be flat from last year, TrendForce said.
“Most of our attention is drawn to the smartphone [segment], which is to see shipments drop 11.3 percent this year. Smartphones consume about 40 percent of DRAM and NAND flash products produced,” TrendForce analyst Avril Wu (吳雅婷) told an online forum in Taipei.
Before the pandemic started to weigh on consumer demand, TrendForce had forecast that smartphone shipments would slide 3.5 percent annually this year.
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