Infineon raises outlook on strong fiscal Q2

LONDON – German chip company Infineon Technologies AG, which has focused on energy, automotive, industrial and security applications, has more than doubled profit on strongly increased second fiscal quarter revenue. As a consequence the company has raised its outlook for the full year, despite some risks of impact from the Japan earthquake of March 2011.

The company made a net profit of 572 million euro (about $850 million) on revenue of 994 million euro (about $1.48 billion) in the quarter ended March 31, largely due to the sale of its wireless business unit. This compares with a net profit of 232 million euro (about $345 million) on 922 million euro (about $1.37 billion) sales in the previous quarter and 79 million euro (about $115 million) profit on 781 million euro (about $1.16 billion) sales in 1Q10.

However, 399 million euro (about $592 million) of the recent profit came from discontinued operations. Infineon sold off its wireless business unit to Intel in the latest quarter. This produced an after tax gain of 378 million euro and a pre-tax gain amounted of 535 million euro.

"In the first half of this fiscal year, we have outgrown our addressed market and our competition, earned record margins and returned 216 million euro in cash to the capital market. This quarter proved once again that focusing on energy efficiency, mobility and security is the right strategy. With our system expertise and highly innovative products we will further enlarge our footprint in these fast growing markets," said Peter Bauer, CEO of Infineon, in a statement.  

Infineon said it has not experienced any shortage of materials nor has it experienced any change in order or delivery acceptance patterns on the part of customers as a result of the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake in Japan. It said that it continues to monitor the situation and that there are operational risks on both the supply and demand side.

Infineon added that it now expects full year revenue growth of 20 percent, compared with the mid-teens percentage that it was previously guiding people to expect. Within this outlook, the company expects above group average growth for industrial, growth about in-line with the group average for automotive and growth below group average for chip card and security revenues.