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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (456)	11/13/2001 9:06:54 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Infineon cuts capital spending 61% in fiscal '02, posts $465 million loss in quarter Semiconductor Business News (11/13/01 08:53 a.m. EST) MUNICH -- Infineon Technologies AG today reported a 15% sequential drop in sales to 1.09 billion euros ($970 million) in the company's fiscal fourth quarter, ended Sept. 30, compared to 1.28 billion euros ($1.14 billion) in the prior three-month period. The revenue decline, caused mostly by price erosion in memories and other IC products, resulted in a net loss of 523 million euros ($465 million) in the fiscal fourth quarter. "We are making significant progress in the implementation of our comprehensive "Impact" cost saving program aimed at reducing operating costs by more than 1 billion euros until the end of the 2002 fiscal year [which concludes Sept 30, 2002]," said Ulrich Schumacher, president and CEO of Infineon. As part of the belt tightening, Munich-based Infineon said it was lowering its capital spending plans 61% to about 900 million euros ($801 million) in the new fiscal 2002 year from 2.3 billion euros ($2.05 billion) in the just-ended fiscal year. Before the end of the 2001 fiscal year, Infineon said it had lowered its capital spending from a previous estimate of 2.8 billion euros. Infineon said the outlook for chip markets remains uncertain in the next six months due to the slowdown of worldwide economic growth and the current "global political environment." The company expects to see continued price erosion in DRAMs due to excess manufacturing capacity. Cellular phone shipments also have not recovered from a sharp drop off in early 2001, the company noted. The company's Memory Products Group posted revenues of 243 million euros ($216 million) in the fiscal fourth quarter, a sequential drop of 27% from 332 million euros ($295 million) in the prior quarter and a decline of 54% from 1.27 billion euros ($1.13 billion) in the period last year. Infineon's Memory Group had a loss before interest and taxes of 522 million euros ($465 million) in the just-ended quarter compared to earnings of 727 million euros ($647 million) in the period last year.

To: Gottfried who wrote (456)	11/13/2001 12:05:21 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Light at the end of the tunnel?<pun intended> Tuesday November 13 11:27 AM ET Corning Sees Turnaround in Second Half of 2002 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Corning Inc. (NYSE:GLW - news), the world's largest maker of fiber-optic cable, sees a turnaround in its business in the second half of 2002, President and Chief Executive John Loose said on Tuesday. ``We see a turnaround in six to nine months because the regional (telephone) carriers are going to be facing emerging problems, and they're going to have to start building out fiber-optic networks,'' Loose told Reuters at a telecommunications conference here. Speaking at the UBS Warburg Global Telecom Conference, Loose said Corning does not expect to cut its 2002 capital spending budget any further. ``We have said our capital spending will be between $600 million and $700 million next year, which is down from $1.8 billion this year,'' he said. ``I don't foresee it going any lower.'' Loose said he hopes there are no job cuts in 2002, but added, ``We're not going to run this company on hope.'' The company, which employed 43,000 people at its peak, will cut as many as 12,000 jobs by the end of this year.

To: Gottfried who wrote (456)	11/14/2001 8:33:34 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Perhaps this is the result of me buying a new PC this weekend? One person can make a dfference:-) Spot prices of DRAMs soar in puzzling turnaround By Jack Robertson and Robin Lamb EBN (11/13/01 20:08 p.m. EST) DRAM spot market prices for mainline PC memory chips have doubled in a week in an astonishing market turn-around that sent analysts and participants scrambling for an explanation. DRAMExchange.com reported the workhorse 16x8 PC133 128-Mbit SDRAM was selling for an average $1.66 on Monday, up from 85 cents just a week earlier. Converge Inc. listed the same part selling at $1.70. In fact, the steep spot market jump pushed prices ahead of the last negotiated contract prices, reported by analysts averaging $1.30 for the PC133 128-Mbit part. The rapid flip-flop caught analysts by surprise. Jonathan Joseph, chip analyst for Salomon Smith Barney, said "it is unclear what really spurred the price move." Joseph Osha, chip analyst for Merill Lynch Securities believed "Micron Technology and Hynix Semiconductor are testing the waters (for higher prices, but without a seasonal upturn in demand, we believe the recent DRAM price hikes will not stick." Farhad Tabrizi, Hynix vice president for world wide marketing, has an explanation for the sudden pricing upsurge. "When some of our DRAM competitors thought Hynix would not survive, they dropped the prices abnormally to kill us off. After creditors approved the Hynix financial restructuring package and they saw we weren't going to die, the competitors had to back off quickly on such low pricing they couldn't maintain." DRAM market analysts in Asia, where the DRAM price hikes are steepest, also believed the three biggest DRAM vendors--Samsung, Micron and Hynix -- had set a floor price of $1.50 or more that would not be cut for 128-Mbit chips sold into the spot market. Tabrizi said Hynix didn't have to set an floor prices for DRAMs being sold into the spot market, after major competitors stopped severe undercutting to drive his firm out of business. "We were glad to take advantage of the new higher spotmarket prices," he said. A Samsung spokesman denied either cutting prices deliberately or conversely setting a floor price in the spot market to drive prices up. "The market is reacting to a confluence of factors to move prices up: seasonably higher demand, and a shift to Direct Rambus and DDR lessening the supply of (single data rate) PC100 and PC133 SDRAMs," he said. He reiterated that Samsung isn't a price leader, but in virtually every DRAM type the Korean firm is among the higher price vendors. Michael Seibert, memory strategic marketing manager for Micron Technologies, denied that his company would set any spot market floor price. "The market always determines the price that we can sell at." Elpida Memory and Infineon Technologies didn't responded to inquiries. Hans Dieter Mackowiak, Samsung Semiconductor senior vice president for sales and marketing, said a week ago he had seen the beginning of the upward DRAM price movement, but added he didn't believe it could be sustained. The Samsung spokesman Tuesday reiterated the forecast that the price jump couldn't be maintained in face of a global supply glut that shows no signs of dissipating any time soon.