Japanese equipment demand seen up strongly: biz.yahoo.com
Thursday January 7, 5:14 am Eastern Time
Chip equipment orders seen rising as supplies dip
TOKYO, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Semiconductor production equipment manufacturers will enjoy a surge in orders in the first half of 1999 as chip producers will increase capital investment to cope with a supply shortage, a leading chip industry analyst said on Thursday.
Fumiaki Sato, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Group, said he expected orders at chip production equipment makers to jump 57 percent in 1999, which should have an especially strong first half.
''Chip production equipment makers will see the biggest change in orders in the first half of 1999,'' Sato said in a statement.
Bright prospects boosted shares in semiconductor production equipment makers on Thursday. While chip and technology stocks were generally higher, reflecting strong gains in NASDAQ overnight, Nikon Corp Advantest Corp and Tokyo Electron Ltd all jumped by more than seven percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Sato said inventories of dynamic random access memory chips (DRAMs) had fallen below appropriate levels since late last year, after South Korean chip manufacturers' production cuts and steady sales of personal computers on the global market.
He expected tightening supplies to prompt chip manufacturers to increase capital spending by 10 percent in 1999. And the supply shortage should continue until 2000, he said.
A 64-megabit DRAM chip, the main memory of most PCs, currently trades at around nine to $10, after falling to six dollars last June. Although January is usually a weak month for demand, the chip market has maintained the firm price trend, industry officials said.
They said that if the stable price trend continued, at least the biggest Japanese chip manufacturer, NEC Corp , should be able to post profits in its chip division in the second half of 1998/1999. |
