Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday posted its ninth consecutive quarter of losses, but the world’s No. 4 DRAM chipmaker said it expects a pickup in demand next quarter for standard DRAM chips used in smartphones and consumer electronics.
The company said it has seen signs of a nascent recovery, after China introduced several economic stimulus packages to encourage consumer spending.
Major industry players, led by Samsung Electronics Co, also continue to reduce inventory, leading to better supply-demand dynamics, it said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
“We are expecting DRAM chips used in consumer electronics to be out of the woods in the second quarter and move toward a positive direction,” Nanya president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told an online news briefing.
“The inventory of [memory chips for] smartphones is returning to a normal level in China. That will pave the way for an improvement in the supply-demand situation in the first half,” Lee said, adding that the firm expects a noticeable improvement in its bottom line in the final quarter of this year.
The company added that it is racing to produce more DDR5 DRAM chips to inject new growth. DDR5 chips, used mainly in computers and servers, enjoy a significant price premium compared with DDR4 chips.
“Nanya Technology will mainly rely on the new products — DDR5, DDR4 made on new, advanced technology, low-power DDR4 and low-power DDR5 memory chips — for bottom-line improvement, and there is a chance to see a marked improvement in the fourth quarter,” Lee said.
The company aims to boost the contribution of DDR5 chips to about 20 percent of overall DRAM production in the first half of this year.
For the full year, DDR5 chips are to account for 30 percent of its total production, Lee said.
The company has also partnered with Piecemakers Technology Inc (補丁科技) to develop high-bandwidth memory chips used in artificial intelligence-powered edge devices, Lee said, adding that it expects to ship its first high-bandwidth DRAM chips by the end of next year.
Nanya Technology last month announced that it would acquire up to 38 percent of Piecemakers’ shares for a maximum of NT$660 million (US$19.93 million), and spend NT$20 billion on new facilities and equipment this year, up from NT$16 billion last year.
The company’s net losses widened from NT$1.49 billion the previous quarter to NT$1.57 billion in the December quarter, amid sluggish demand and lower average selling prices.
On an annual basis, net losses improved from NT$2.48 billion.
Shipments last quarter sank 7 to 9 percent sequentially, or 31 to 33 percent annually, while selling prices dipped about 11 to 13 percent quarterly, but rose 11 to 13 percent annually, the company said.
As a whole, losses last year narrowed from NT$7.44 billion in 2023 to NT$5.08 billion, the company said.
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
READY TO BUY: Shortly after Nvidia announced the approval, Chinese firms scrambled to order the H20 GPUs, which the company must send to the US government for approval Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) late on Monday said the technology giant has won approval from US President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The news came in a company blog post late on Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run China Global Television Network in remarks shown on X. “The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said. “Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
The National Stabilization Fund (NSF, 國安基金) is to continue supporting local shares, as uncertainties in international politics and the economy could affect Taiwanese industries’ global deployment and corporate profits, as well as affect stock movement and investor confidence, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement yesterday. The NT$500 billion (US$17.1 billion) fund would remain active in the stock market as the US’ tariff measures have not yet been fully finalized, which would drive international capital flows and global supply chain restructuring, the ministry said after the a meeting of the fund’s steering committee. Along with ongoing geopolitical risks and an unfavorable
RSS