Via Technologies Inc (威盛電子), the world's second-largest computer chipset maker, is expected to say first-quarter profit tumbled as the company lost market share to rivals using the latest technology.
The company will probably report net income of NT$977 million (US$28 million), or NT$1.04 per share, from NT$2.3 billion, or NT$4.01 a share, a year ago, the average of three estimates by analysts in a Bloomberg News survey showed. First-quarter sales fell 29 percent to NT$7.3 billion from the same period a year ago, Via said earlier. The company will report earnings today.
Via's sales in the second quarter will probably decline from the first three months because the company will continue to lose market share to rivals that are making products that work with Intel Corp's latest PC processor, analysts said.
"The Intel Pentium 4 is gaining momentum," said Rick Hsu (徐禕成), an analyst with Nomura Secu-rities Co. "Most major motherboard makers are still not using Via's Pentium 4 chipset because of licensing concerns."
Chipsets work with a processor to manage the functions of a computer such as graphics and memory. Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, has signed agreements with Via's smaller rivals, Silicon Integrated Systems Corp (
Silicon Integrated, Via's next-largest rival, said that its first-quarter sales rose by more than half to NT$3.6 billion. Acer Labs, which makes chipsets for PCs and DVD players, said first-quarter sales rose to NT$1.5 billion from NT$892 million a year ago.
Intel, which also makes chipsets, said it plans to regain much of the market share it lost to Taiwan rivals starting two years ago. Intel's share of the market may return to 70 percent from the 50 percent it currently has, according to Howard High, an Intel spokesman.
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