Dram And Flash Two Engines Pulled 2017 Winbond Profit Hit A 17-year High

Memory maker Winbond held a legal person briefing on the afternoon of February 2 and announced the revenue figures for the second half of 2017 and the whole year. Winbond said that in terms of single-quarter operation, revenue consolidated in the third quarter of 2017, including parts of Nuvoton Technologies and other subsidiaries of 12.55 billion yuan (NT, the same below), operating margin was 37%, attributable to the mother Net profit of 2.085 billion yuan, EPS 0.58 yuan. In the fourth quarter, the combined revenue of NTT Technology and other affiliates was 13.26 billion yuan, with a gross profit margin of 38%. The net profit attributable to parent company was 1.789 billion yuan, 0.49 yuan per share.

Winbond said that in terms of memory segment, 2017 revenue of Specialty DRAM accounted for 40% of revenue for the full year and revenue decreased 8% from the previous year, mainly due to limited production capacity. Mobile DRAM, on the other hand, accounted for 13% of revenue for the full year and revenue increased 5% from the previous year. The increase in revenue was mainly due to the increase in the demand for low-volume products. Lastly, in the Flash Memory segment, revenues accounted for 47% of the full year and revenue increased 46% from the previous year. The growth momentum came from the increase in production capacity and the favorable market conditions.

Cumulative, in the whole year of 2017, Winbond contained its revenue of 47.592 billion yuan from its subsidiary, Nuvoton Technologies, and its net profit attributable to parent company was 5.551 billion yuan, reaching 1.54 yuan per share, setting a new high for 17 years. Zhan Dong-yi, general manager of Winbond, pointed out that at present, including DRAM, Flash two major share of total revenue accounted for half of the proportion of the company to become two major growth engines, which will make the company more optimistic about the operation of the company. Moreover, since the market conditions of the two products are not easily deteriorated at the same time, the market conditions of DRAM and Flash products are still healthy in 2018, making Winbond a steady growth in 2018.

In addition, Zhan Dongyi also stressed that in the market more applications, including artificial intelligence, mining machines, automotive electronics and other fields, the past, DRAM, or Flash relies on the PC or smart phone single product growth is over, so the overall Market conditions are still healthy. While the company also hopes to increase capacity to meet market demand. However, subject to the current situation in Taichung plant is already full of space, some of the production capacity can only be enhanced by optimizing the product mix and manufacturing process. Winbond in 2017 the overall monthly production capacity of about 46,000, 2018 is expected to be raised to 52,000. Among them, DRAM, Flash annual production capacity estimates will increase by more than 10%.

As for the overall capital expenditure, Winbond's capital expenditure will be $ 15.2 billion in 2017 and will increase to 18.5 billion in 2018 in response to the increase in production capacity. In the development of technology process, DRAM part, Winbond self-developed 3X nano-mass production, shipments will also gradually increase, then will continue to invest 2X nano-technology research and development. In Flash products, 45-nanometer process technology research and development will continue. In the continuous development of DRAM and Flash products, Zhan Dongyi said Winbond will not be defined as a pure DRAM manufacturing company in the future.