DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said it expects a mild decline in revenue this year as mounting inflation is depressing spending on consumer electronics, which has led to an inventory correction from PC and smartphone companies.
The correction is expected to extend into the next quarter and is likely to last through the fourth quarter, defying the traditional business pattern for the chip industry.
The third quarter is usually a peak season, Nanya said.
Photo: CNA
“There are lots of black swan events this year. Mounting inflation, in particular, has significantly dampened consumer confidence and their purchasing power,” Nanya president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told reporters on the sidelines of a groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s new factory in New Taipei City’s Taishan District (泰山).
“Nanya Technology has done quite a good job in the first half of this year. We hope [revenue] would drop only slightly for the whole year of this year, compared with last year,” Lee said.
Aside from PCs and smartphones, the adverse effect of inflation is likely to spread to server DRAM demand, Lee said.
Server buyers might start to tighten their capital expenditures in the final quarter of the year, he added.
Nanya’s revenue inched up 0.04 percent to NT$32.74 billion (US$1.1 billion) in the first five months of this year, after posting its lowest monthly revenue last month as an uneven supply of key components worsened due to China’s lockdowns.
Despite the slowdown, Nanya does not plan to scale back this year’s planned capital spending of NT$28.4 billion, but some payments might be deferred to next year due to delays in equipment delivery amid a shortage of key components, Lee said.
The chipmaker plans to adjust capacity allocations to cope with the short-term shocks, as it believes the DRAM industry would grow in the long term, given its vital status in the digital transformation, Lee said.
The company serves more than 800 customers with diversified products, he said.
PC DRAM accounts for only about 20 percent of the company’s total revenue, he said.
The company plans to invest NT$300 billion in the new 12-inch fab. That would add 45,000 12-inch wafers to the firm’s monthly capacity of 70,000 wafers, helping it to capture new growth opportunities.
The chipmaker expects the fab to start commercial shipments in 2025 rather than in 2024, with a monthly capacity of 15,000 wafers in the first phase.
The company plans to deploy 10-nanometer process technology, developed entirely by the chipmaker, he said.
It also plans to use extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, tools when the chipmaker starts producing chips using fourth-generation 10-nanometer technology, it said.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
NOT TO WORRY: Some people are concerned funds might continue moving out of the country, but the central bank said financial account outflows are not unusual in Taiwan Taiwan’s outbound investments hit a new high last year due to investments made by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other major manufacturers to boost global expansion, the central bank said on Thursday. The net increase in outbound investments last year reached a record US$21.05 billion, while the net increase in outbound investments by Taiwanese residents reached a record US$31.98 billion, central bank data showed. Chen Fei-wen (陳斐紋), deputy director of the central bank’s Department of Economic Research, said the increase was largely due to TSMC’s efforts to expand production in the US and Japan. Investments by Vanguard International
WARNING SHOT: The US president has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that a trade deal with China was “possible” — a key target in the US leader’s tariffs policy. The US in 2020 had already agreed to “a great trade deal with China” and a new deal was “possible,” Trump said. Trump said he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to visit the US, without giving a timeline for his trip. Trump also said that he was talking to China about TikTok, as the US seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動). Trump last week said that he had
RSS