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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe NYC who wrote (108053)	8/23/2000 5:18:53 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 186894

Wednesday August 23 2:49 AM ET Toshiba Eyes Rise in Chip Capital Expenditure Plans By Hiroko Nakata TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp. said on Wednesday it may raise its capital spending target for chip output by 30 percent this business year, responding to brisk global demand for mobile phones and digital electronics. A spokesman for the nation's second-biggest chipmaker said Toshiba was considering raising semiconductor capital investment to about 170 billion yen ($1.57 billion) for the year to next March from an original target of 130 billion yen. That reflects surging demand for semiconductors, especially large-scale integration chips and flash memories for mobile phones and digital electronics, and would match its record chip investment in the 1995, '96 and '97 fiscal years, he said. The latest capital spending plan gave only a moderate lift to Toshiba shares, as market watchers had anticipated the move. Toshiba ended the day up 0.36 percent at 1,112 yen, having gained 25 percent since the August 4 close on expectations of strong earnings for the current business year. ``Toshiba's doing much better than expected and the market's spent the past three days factoring that in,'' said Hiroshi Sato, equities general manager at Cosmo Securities. Only two days ago, Toshiba predicted its group net profit this year would hit a record high of 135 billion yen, up more than one-third from previous estimates. Profit Turnaround The forecast is a marked turnaround from the last business year when the company, the world's third-largest chipmaker and a sprawling electronics conglomerate that makes everything from nuclear power reactors to vacuum cleaners, posted its biggest ever consolidated net loss of 28 billion yen. Some analysts said Toshiba shares could head up to near their year high of 1,280 yen marked on July 4, but warned that the topside could be heavy given the share's stunning 42 percent rally so far this year. This compares with a 15 percent fall in Japan's electronics appliance sector during the same period. With the information technology boom fuelling demand for mobile phones and personal computers, and thus the chips and displays they are made with, Japan's chipmakers have been boosting their profit forecasts and capital investment plans. Toshiba and four other top chipmakers here --- NEC Corp., Hitachi, Fujitsu and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. -- have raised their capital investment plans for this business year to 904 billion yen, surpassing the previous high of 887 billion yen in the 1995/96 business year. A global semiconductor statistics body said on Wednesday that world chip output capacity expanded 3.5 percent in the April-June quarter from the previous quarter, reflecting solid demand for mobile phones and personal computers. Semiconductor International Capacity Statistics (SICAS), which compiles data from 50 major global semiconductor makers, said production capacity of MOS ICs (metal-oxide-semiconductor integrated circuits) rose to an average 1.82 million sheets per week of six-inch wafer equivalents in the second quarter of 2000.