Micron Technology Inc president Mark Adams said prices of computer memory chips have probably hit a low after a slump that caused losses at three of the four largest companies in the industry.
In December, the Boise, Idaho-based company, the only remaining US maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), reported its second straight quarterly loss as product prices fell amid slowing personal computer orders.
“I don’t think DRAM goes down from here,” Adams said in an interview ahead of a company analyst day in Scottsdale, Arizona. “It’s starting to feel like a stable market.”
Chipmakers are struggling to match supply with demand in the market for memory in personal computers, where plants take years to come online and cannot be shut down cheaply.
Underlining that, last year industry sales dropped 26 percent to US$29.2 billion, according to an estimate by market researcher Gartner Inc. That followed a 72 percent surge in 2010.
Adams was promoted to company president last week following the death of former chief executive officer Steve Appleton in an airplane accident. Former chief operating officer Mark Durcan has reversed his retirement decision and is taking on Appleton’s position.
The industry is inching closer to Appleton’s vision of a more stable business populated by few producers, Adams said.
Only the Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co, the largest maker of computer memory, which also gets income from mobile phones, flat panel displays and home electronics, has remained profitable.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
Taiwan would remain in the same international network for carrying out cross-border payments and would not be marginalized on the world stage, despite jostling among international powers, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said yesterday. Yang made the remarks during a speech at an annual event organized by Financial Information Service Co (財金資訊), which oversees Taiwan’s banking, payment and settlement systems. “The US dollar will remain the world’s major cross-border payment tool, given its high liquidity, legality and safe-haven status,” Yang said. Russia is pushing for a new cross-border payment system and highlighted the issue during a BRICS summit in October. The existing system
Convenience store operator Lawson Inc has registered trademarks in Taiwan, sparking rumors that the Japanese chain is to enter the local market. The company on Aug. 30 filed trademarks for the names Lawson and Lawson Station, according to publicly available information from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Intellectual Property Office. The product categories on the application include some of Lawson’s top-selling items for use in the convenience store market. The discovery has led to speculation online that the popular Japanese chain is to enter the Taiwanese market. However, some pointed out that it might be a preemptive application to avoid others from co-opting the
STRONG GROWTH: AI-related business is stealing the limelight from products like smartphones, and appears not to be affected by seasonality, boding well for local firms Taiwan’s exports last month bounced 9.7 percent from a year earlier to US$41.09 billion, the second-strongest for the same period, as demand for almost all product categories picked up, due partly to preventive attempts on the part of suppliers to dodge potential US tariff hikes, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The growth momentum would be sustained this month at a pace of 4.5 percent to 7.5 percent, as a stable but uneven global recovery continues, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said. Outbound shipments of chips and informations and communication technology (ICT) products expanded by 15.5 percent and 11.7 percent
RSS