The business of the Munich semiconductor manufacturer is running smoothly.
(Photo: dpa)
Munich. At the chip company Infineon, business is going better than expected. CEO Jochen Hanebeck has therefore raised the forecast this Thursday. The manager now promises sales of 16.2 billion euros for the current financial year, which ends on September 30th. That is 700 million euros more than he had previously promised. In particular, the core business with the automotive sector and industry is responsible for growth.
The operating margin should now be 27 percent, two percentage points more than before, the Munich company announced. And the free cash flow, at EUR 1.1 billion, will also be EUR 300 million higher than last promised.
“Infineon is doing very well. Our businesses related to electromobility, renewable energy generation and energy infrastructure are developing strongly. We serve exactly these key applications for decarbonization,” said Hanebeck on Thursday.
Infineon increases quarterly sales by a quarter
In consumer goods markets such as smartphones, PCs and household appliances, there is still no discernible improvement. Overall, however, he is very confident about Infineon’s further business development.
In the second quarter of the financial year, which has just ended, sales jumped by a quarter compared to the previous year to around 4.1 billion euros. The operating margin increased by more than five percentage points to 28.6 percent. The profit even climbed by 76 percent to 826 million euros.
Munich’s most important competitors have also presented strong numbers. The turnover of the French-Italian competitor STMicroelectronics climbed in the first quarter by a fifth to 4.25 billion dollars. The net profit even shot up by 40 percent to a good one billion dollars.
The Infineon boss can be satisfied with the business development of the chip manufacturer.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
And Dutch rival NXP beat analysts’ expectations with its guidance for the current quarter. The solid first-quarter results would provide “cautious optimism,” said NXP CEO Kurt Sievers earlier in the week. He is confident that the group “successfully weathers the cyclical downturn in our consumer-exposed businesses, while we see continued strength in our automotive and core industries businesses.”
Not all chip companies are doing well
The good course of business cannot be taken for granted. Things are going badly for many other semiconductor companies because they generate a large part of their sales with mobile phone manufacturers and computer manufacturers. Sales of smartphones, PCs and notebooks have been paralyzed since the end of the pandemic. AMD disappointed investors this week with a gloomy forecast. Intel reported a loss of $2.8 billion last week.
At Infineon, on the other hand, the signs point to growth. On Tuesday, CEO Hanebeck celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for the group’s new factory in Dresden with many political celebrities. The engineer is investing five billion euros in the plant, making it Infineon’s largest investment of all time. In the future, Infineon intends to achieve annual sales of five billion euros.
More: Von der Leyen at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Infineon factory: “Need more chip mass production in Europe”