scrapps, sure hope this story about TXN is not about x2 chips.
As if the Semis/Market did not have enough to contend with
(INTC, MOT, CPQ...) now we have this:
TI Says Asia Took Big Bite Out of Chip Market
DALLAS (Reuters) - The Asia crisis has taken at least a $6.5
billion bite out of the global semiconductor market and is hurting
near-term profits, executives at Texas Instruments said.
Chief Financial Officer Bill Aylesworth said the industry would
grow 10 percent this year and that its long-term prospects remained
strong, but weak chip orders "across the board" at the end of 1997
were pressuring some key markets.
The TI executives spoke a day after Intel, the world's largest
maker of computer chips, stunned Wall Street with a warning of a
first-quarter earnings shortfall, citing weaker- than-anticipated
demand for its microprocessors.
"Late in the fourth quarter, customers concerned about the whole
Asian situation seemed to be hesitant to place re-orders, " TI's
Aylesworth told Reuters. "While order rates have resumed to
generally more normal patterns from that, it is still a reason to be
cautious in the near-term."
He said the global chip market should grow 10 percent to $150
billion in 1998, up from 4 percent last year but still way below the
long-term 15-20 percent range that the Dallas-based semiconductor
giant had set for the industry.
Texas Instrument's chief economist, Vladi Catto, said the global
semiconductor market would have grown between 15 percent and
17 percent this year if it not for the Asia crisis.
In dollar terms, that means the chip market will grow only about
$13.5 billion this year, instead of between $20 billion and $23 billion.
"It is a significant impact, but it is not huge, it is not a disastrous
impact," Catto said.
He also painted a bright picture for 1999, saying renewed economic
growth in Asia and capacity reductions caused by the region's
recent problems would boost demand and help a recovery in the
prices of common memory chips, which have been battered by
excess production over the last two years.
"If we expect the semiconductor market to grow 10 percent in
1998, then we should expect the industry to grow between 20 and
35 percent in 1999," Catto said.
"We can't wait to get through 1998," he added to laughter from
industry analysts gathered for a meeting with Texas Instruments
executives in Dallas.
His one worry for Asia was whether the Japanese government
would take firm enough steps to spark a recovery. He said the
government so far had "done nothing to reflate the economy" but
that he expected it to make the move in coming months.
U.S. technology stocks took a battering on Thursday after Intel
warned of weaker-than-expected earnings amid falling prices and
slowing demand for personal computers.
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