Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/29
By: Jackson Chang and Frances Huang

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) MediaTek Inc., one of Taiwan’s leading integrated circuit designers, said Friday that its net profit for the first quarter of 2016 rose from a quarter earlier because of a reduction in non-recurring costs.

At an investor conference, MediaTek reported a net profit for the quarter of NT$4.47 billion (US$138 million), up about 7 percent from the previous quarter with the help of a sequential fall in one-time charges.

It had first quarter earnings per share of NT$2.79, compared with NT$2.83 in the fourth quarter of 2015, the company said.

Despite the increase in net profit for the January-March period, MediaTek’s gross margin fell 0.4 percentage points from a quarter earlier and was down 9.2 percentage points from a year earlier to 38.1 percent.

The IC designer said the falling gross margin resulted from escalating competition in the global smartphone market. Smartphone chips accounted for about 60 percent of MediaTek’s total revenue.     [FULL  STORY]