MediaTek Sees Net Profits Hit 2-year High of NT$4.941 B. in Q3

Taipei, Nov. 1, 2012 (CENS)--Fueled by strong shipment of chipsets for smartphones, the Taiwan-based MediaTek Inc., major supplier of handset chipsets in Asia, saw net profits for the third quarter hit a 2-year high of NT$4.941 billion, with EPS (earnings per share) of NT$4.06, according to the company's latest financial report.

The report shows NT$29.47 billion in combined revenue for the quarter, sharply up 25.72% from a quarter ago to beat market expectations of between NT$26.5 billion and NT$27.7 billion, with gross profit rate of 41.2%, up 0.4 of a percentage point.

The banner operating performance is due to strong shipment of chipsets for smartphones, totaling between 35 million and 40 million units in the third quarter, said MediaTek's president C.J. Hsieh, who says shipment of the products is estimated to exceed 40 million units in the fourth quarter to be unaffected by a low season.

Chipsets for smartphones enabled for the domestic TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) standard established by China are expected to drive MediaTek's shipment in the fourth quarter. Presently, the Taiwanese chipset designer has Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo as customers, all of which have kicked off mass production of their new TD-SCDMA smartphone models.

In response to brisk market demand for smartphone chipsets, the company has recently adjusted its forecast of 2012 shipment up to more than 110 million units from 95 million units earlier.

Worth mentioning is that the company has taken advantage of its know-how of smartphone chipsets to venture into developing models for tablet PC processors this year, and will dedicate more resources to the new business to speed challenging existing players, including Nvidia and Qualcomm, next year.