Without Qimonda, Infineon reports loss

Charges connected to the Qimonda carve-out as well as the BenQ insolvency caused Infineon's earnings figures to appear in deep red. But even without these charges, the chip maker is far from break-even.

Even though Q4 group revenues were up 6 percent excluding Qimonda to $2.9 billion, EBIT earnings were 39 percent lower quarter-over-quarter. Thus, the company earned $38.3 million compared to $62.59 million in the Q2. Without the contribution of Qimonda, of which Infineon still holds 85 percent, the loss tripled to $222 million.

However, these figures contain one-time charges of $209 million, connected to the Qimonda IPO and impairments resulting from the BenQ Mobile insolvency. BenQ Mobile was a large Infineon customer, buying baseband and RF devices. Group loss rose 56 percent to $45.9 million.

For fiscal year 2006, revenue rose 17 percent to $10 billion. Group EBIT loss narrowed from $233.7 million to $19 million. EBIT margins in the automotive, industrial and multimarket division climbed to 8.7 percent from 5.3 percent despite expenses for the production ramp-up in the Kulim fab and the phase-out of production at Infineon's outdated Perlach facility.

Meanwhile, Qimonda had reported surprisingly strong figures with revenues growing by almost 30 percent.

- Christoph Hammerschmidt
EE Times