Phison Electronics has estimated that its revenues in March reached NT$3.3 billion (US$104 million), a more than 60% rise sequentially. The memory controller IC specialist, which also makes NAND flash devices, said it saw shipments of flash disk drives and memory cards rise on strong demand.
Phison's gross margin for the first quarter was affected by DRAM price fluctuations, but remained in the double digits, according to the company. Judging from the orders it has received, Phison expects strong performance in April.
Phison revealed plans to allocate most of its resources to products used for embedded memory in 2010, in a move to meet growing demand for smartphones and portable electronics devices. The flash controller supplier also expects demand for solid-state drives (SSD) to start picking up in the latter half of the year, allowing it to boost shipments and revenues during the period.
Phison's chip inventory level has reached just above one month, according to the company.
In other news, average contract quotes for 16Gb multi-level cell (MLC) chips dropped 2.5% to US$3.92 in the second half of March, while prices for 32Gb parts slid by about 1% to US$7.04.