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Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mason Barge who wrote (4929)	2/27/1998 11:04:00 AM
From: Ian@SI	Respond to of 10921

... and back to chips for a brief interlude. ;-) Following implies short term pain may be followed by longer term gains for the non SEA chipmakers. Ian. Dow Jones Newswires -- February 27, 1998 Japan's NEC Forecasts Modest Slippage In Semiconductor Sales By DAVID P. HAMILTON, STAFF REPORTER Dow Jones Newswires TOKYO -- NEC Corp. expects its semiconductor sales to drop by 1% to 2% as a result of Asia's financial crisis, and isn't sure when the situation will improve, a senior NEC executive said. NEC's sales of semiconductors are down across Asia, where demand for chip-intensive consumer products is off sharply. In South Korea, for instance, "demand is down to less than half," Hajime Sasaki, head of NEC's semiconductor operations, said. Japan's slumping economy has also hurt. "Frankly, it is difficult to know how long this will continue," Sasaki told Dow Jones. Sasaki added that NEC (NIPNY) believes it can offset weakness in Asia by making greater sales in the robust U.S. and European markets. At best, he said, that means NEC will either leave its overall sales forecast for the year ending March 31 unchanged or issue "a minor modification." Still, there is a silver lining for NEC: its Korean memory-chip competitors have been battered by the region's economic crisis. The weaker won may initially allow Korean makers to make sales more profitably, Sasaki said, but over time they are likely to face trouble importing newly expensive semiconductor equipment and raising money for the big investments necessary to stay on top in the chip race. "Korean companies will lose competitiveness in the semiconductor market, maybe by 1999," Sasaki said