Tokyo Electron Reports Robust Earnings for April-June

Tokyo, July 27 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo Electron Ltd. on Friday reported robust group earnings for the April-June first quarter of fiscal 2007, supported by strong demand for chipmaking equipment in Taiwan.

Net profit leaped 60.9 pct from a year before to 26,192 million yen, and operating profit grew 66.4 pct to 43,034 million yen. Sales came to 212,494 million yen, up 18.6 pct.

Sales of chipmaking equipment increased 31.7 pct to 165,785 million yen, while sales fell 26.0 pct to 21.4 billion yen for equipment to make flat panel displays.

Tokyo Electron’s order receipts for chipmaking equipment in April- June dropped 24.6 pct to 145.2 billion yen.

Commenting on the slump in orders, a Tokyo Electron official said that chipmakers curbed investment in response to falls in the prices of dynamic random access memory chips.

Tokyo Electron expects that its July-September orders for DRAM- making equipment will remain low at around the level of April-June. But orders are seen rising later on the back of active investment by Taiwanese chipmakers, according to the company.

The company’s sales in the United States and Europe are expected to stay sluggish through the end of the year.

Tokyo Electron kept unchanged its group earnings forecasts for the full year to March 2008. Sales are seen at 900 billion yen, up 5.6 pct from the previous year, operating profit at 160 billion yen, up 11.1 pct, and net profit at 104 billion yen, up 14.0 pct. [EARNINGS]END

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