14 DAY TRIAL // Now that the first financial quarter of the year is over, companies are taking turns publishing their financial results. Unlike last year, it seems that most players are doing better, to the point where they reached significant on-year increases in revenues and shipments. Transcend is no exception and appears to be bent on earning a fair profit, even despite supply issues.
Because of the low demand over the past couple of years, suppliers set lower inventories and manufacturers reduced their yields, in order to avoid oversupply. Now that demand is once again growing, the same companies seem to be having trouble catching up. On the DRAM market, this led to a chip shortage that might turn out to have a different consequence than one would expect.
As per recent reports, chip shortage has led to tight DRAM module supply, which appears to have affected the marketing performance during the past quarter. This means that revenues during the second quarter might show a sequential increase, even though this period is usually slower.
The memory and flash storage supplier also has high hopes for NAND Flash memory products. With smartphones and tablet PCs on the rise, SSDs and memory cards will be in higher demand. As such, the company is collaborating with channel distributors in emerging markets such as the US, Europe and Japan. As for other strategic products, the hardware maker hopes to increase ASPs for the segment dealing with digital photo frames and portable electronic devices.
Transcend's DRAM, NAND and strategic product sales ratio reached 41:37:22 in 2009. For those interested in additional numbers, Transcend made profits of NT$511 million (US$16 million) and reached revenues of NT$8.1 billion during the first quarter of 2010. Finally, due to foreign exchange losses, profits dropped from Q42009 NT$1.39 billion, with the first quarter EPS being of NT$1.21 billion.