Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the world’s fourth-largest DRAM chipmaker, yesterday posted its smallest quarterly loss since the second quarter of last year as gross margin returned to positive territory for the first time in six quarters, driven by improvements in chip prices.
Losses narrowed to NT$813 million (US$24.95 million) during the quarter ended on June 30, compared with losses of NT$1.21 billion in the previous quarter. On an annual basis, losses widened from NT$771 billion.
Gross margin improved to 2.9 percent, compared with minus-2.9 percent in the first quarter and minus-11.2 percent in the second quarter last year.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
Nanya Technology said it would have nearly broke even last quarter, if not for the effects of a massive earthquake in April that led to the company incurring about NT$657 million in damage.
Nanya president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) said the company might be able to post a profit this quarter, thanks to improving DDR4 inventory and better average selling prices, following a sequential increase of 12 to 13 percent last quarter.
Earlier this week, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) predicted that DRAM prices would increase 8 to 13 percent this quarter from a quarter earlier.
The company’s shipments are expected to return to growth this quarter after dropping 5 percent sequentially last quarter, Lee said.
Shipments for the whole of this year are expected to grow 20 percent, given a lower comparison base last year, he said.
As the world’s three major memorychip makers race to produce high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips and DDR5 modules used in artificial intelligence servers or high-end servers, the companies would produce fewer DDR4 chips, which would benefit Nanya Technology, he said.
However, economic slowdowns in China and Europe, along with geopolitical tensions, would continue to affect the use of DRAM chips used in PCs, smartphones and consumer electronics, Lee said.
China, alone, purchases about 40 percent of mobile DRAM, he said.
Nanya Technology has no plans to produce HBM chips in the short term, as the company’s strategy is to tap the DDR5 market first, he said.
DDR5 chips are also used in high-end cloud-computing devices and PCs, the company said.
The company plans to roll out its first DDR5 modules with 16-gigabit capacity in the second half of this year, with estimated sales contribution reaching about 10 percent of its monthly revenue, Lee said.
Nanya Technology has resumed full production on its chip lines and does not expect a strike by Samsung Electronics Co workers to affect supply and demand in the market, he said.
Odd lot trades of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) shares surged on Friday, although the stock faced headwinds, tumbling more than 5 percent in the session, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said. The volume of odd lot trades of TSMC shares totaled about 9.84 million shares on Friday, up sharply by about 400 percent from Tuesday, in a session before the local stock market closed due to Typhoon Gaemi on Wednesday and Thursday, the TWSE added. Stocks in Taiwan are usually bought or sold in lots of 1,000 shares. The nation lifted a ban on odd lots during regular
ECONOMY DRIVER: The upbeat sentiment came even though home prices rose 4.8 to 17 percent in the six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county Housing transactions in the first six months of this year soared 27 percent from a year earlier to 177,000 units, two separate surveys showed, despite steep price increases in some major urban centers. Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), Taiwan’s only listed broker, yesterday said that there was an increase in transactions for new and existing houses as buyer interest spiked. More increases are expected, Sinyi Realty said. The upbeat sentiment came even though home prices rose 4.8 to 17 percent in the six special municipalities — Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung — as well as Hsinchu city and county, Sinyi
DAVID AND GOLIATH: On Tuesday, regulators in the US, EU and UK signed a joint statement setting out key principles to protect the AI industry from unfair competition It is the case of the vanishing start-up: Some of Silicon Valley’s most promising names in the fast-developing generative artificial intelligence (AI) space are being gobbled up by or tied to the hip of US tech giants. Short on funds, in the past few months promising companies like Inflection AI Inc or Adept AI Labs Inc have seen founders and key executives quietly exit the stage to join the world’s dominant tech companies through discrete transactions. Critics believe these deals are acquisitions in all but name and have been especially designed by Microsoft Corp or Amazon.com Inc to avoid the attention of
A row has erupted between Turkey and Germany over what constitutes a doner kebab, with Berlin objecting to a Turkish push for protected status for the iconic snack. The humble doner, made with thinly sliced meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, has its origins in Turkey, but is also beloved in Germany after being introduced there by Turkish migrants. In April, the Turkey-based International Doner Federation (Udofed) filed an application to the European Commission to grant the doner kebab Traditional Speciality Guaranteed status. From the exact meat and spices to the thickness of the knife used to slice the meat, Udofed wants the