As Night Follows Day:
EE Times:
Spansion beats out Intel in handset flash memory
Mike Clendenin
EE Times
(04/03/2007 1:44 AM EDT)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Spansion Inc. has leapfrogged Intel Corp. to take the lead in the NOR flash market, according to market researcher iSuppli Corp.
Spansion outpaced last year's overall growth in NOR flash, racking up a 35 percent increase in sales to $1.8 billion. The overall market grew by 16.4 percent to hit $6.1 billion.
That makes Spansion No.1, with 29.9 percent of the market, in flash sold into mobile phones. Intel is No.2 with 26.1 percent, followed by STMicroelectronics at 15.7 percent, Samsung Electronics at 11.2 percent and Toshiba Corp. at 6.5 percent.
"The major factor behind Spansion's impressive gains was its increasing sales to top-tier handset makers and market-share increases in Japan and the Asia/Pacific region," wrote Mark DeVoss, a senior memory analyst for iSuppli in a recent report.
eetimes.com
Spansion faces massive restructuring
Mark LaPedus
EE Times
04/18/2007 5:07 PM EDT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — In response to losses and poor market conditions in the NOR flash sector, Spansion Inc. said that it will undertake large-scale, cost-cutting measures.
Those actions include the sale of non-performing assets, the consolidation of certain functional operations and other activities related to reducing expenses. The company's goal is to reduce 2007 planned expenses by approximately $50 million to $100 million.
For the quarter ended April 1, the company also reported net sales of $628 million, an increase of 12 percent over net sales of $562 million for the first quarter of 2006.
ASP per bit decline in the first quarter was greater than the average seasonal patterns and higher than the company expected due to the intense competitive environment in the industry, contributing to a sequential quarterly total net sales decrease of 8.7 percent. Net loss for the first quarter of 2007 was $75 million, or $0.56 per share, compared with a net loss of $52 million, or $0.40 per share, in the first quarter of 2006.
Spansion's problems in part are due to one of its biggest customers --Motorola Inc., which is having tough times.
eetimes.com
NOR is a sure fire loss leader with the competition from NAND and the number of fabs in production. The more you sell the more you lose. Thus L'Intel's willingness to give over a measure of that fab space to PCRAM.
How can they do any worse?
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