The outlook for chip prices next year is good, as a global shortage is expected to persist into next year, Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest supplier of NOR flash memory chips, said yesterday.
“We are positive about the first quarter of next year,” Macronix chairman Miin Wu (吳敏求) told an investors’ conference, denying that chip prices would dip amid easing supply constraints as some analysts have said.
“The supply crunch is to last through the whole of next year,” Wu said. “We are running our factories at full capacity.”
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
The growth is mainly underpinned by 5G-related applications, automotive, industrial devices, servers and data centers, entirely absorbing weakness in PC demand, he said.
Tesla Inc’s electric vehicles are equipped with Macronix’s NOR flash memory chips, he said.
Revenue from chips used in automotive, industrial and medical devices soared 161 percent year-on-year last quarter, making up 16 percent of Macronix’s NOR flash memory chip revenue, up from 15 percent a year earlier, he said.
Next year, NOR chips are to grow faster, while the outlook for NAND flash memory chips would be relatively conservative, Wu said.
However, prices for both would trend upward next year, he said.
Macronix has begun shipments of its first batch of 3D memory chips to one customer, Wu said, adding that shipments would expand next year.
The Hsinchu-based company yesterday reported record net profit of NT$5.43 billion (US$195.03 million) for last quarter, up 236 percent year-on-year and 182 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Earnings per share jumped to NT$2.94, compared with NT$0.88 a year earlier and NT$1.92 the prior quarter.
The strong growth was fueled by a disposal gain of NT$2.5 billion from selling a 6-inch factory to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which is to convert it into a manufacturing site for chips used in electric vehicles.
Gross margin improved to 42.9 percent last quarter, up from 35.9 percent a year earlier and 39.1 percent a quarter earlier, attributable to price hikes.
For this quarter, the company said that gross margin is to rise further to the highest this year, while revenue is flat from last quarter’s NT$14.97 billion.
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