Infineon share jumps: Infineon raises sales and profit forecast – chip sector on the rise

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The semiconductor manufacturer Infineon increased its forecasts for the current year after a better than expected development in the second business quarter. The company benefited from its core areas of automotive and industry. And positive signals also came from the USA: There, the memory chip manufacturer Micron Technology was more optimistic for its current quarter than analysts had feared.

This had a positive impact on the sector on the capital market on Wednesday. The Infineon share, which is listed in the DAX 40, rose on Wednesday via XETRA by 7.3 percent to EUR 36.02.

In their wake, the price of competitors such as STMicroelectronics also increased by almost five percent, ams OSRAM gained more than three percent and Elmos Semiconductor almost two percent. Chip supplier AIXTRON SE increased by 2.7 percent. The Micron statements also pulled Siltronic’s papers up by a good one percent. The supplier makes almost five percent of sales with the US group. Micron shares have already gained a good 1.1 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

Analyst Stephane Houri from the investment bank Oddo BHF commented on Infineon that the increase in annual targets was likely and came quickly. Demand from the automotive and industrial sectors is strong.

Infineon now expects an increase in sales in the fiscal year running until the end of September, well above the previously expected EUR 15.5 billion, after EUR 14.2 billion in the previous year. This will also have a positive effect on the segment result margin, the company announced on Tuesday after the stock market closed. At Infineon, this measures the profitability of the operating business and has so far been seen at 25 percent.

Thanks to positive price effects and higher demand for the Group’s more expensive products, as well as the better-than-predicted development of energy costs, the second business quarter is also more profitable than previously thought. Infineon now expects the segment result margin to be in the high 20s, instead of around 25% as before. Sales are expected to increase compared to the previous quarter – from 3.95 billion to more than four billion. The company had recently announced stagnation here.

According to a consensus compiled by Infineon by mid-February, analysts are currently assuming annual sales of almost EUR 15.5 billion and a segment result margin of 25 percent. For the second business quarter, the estimates for the proceeds are so far at almost 3.9 billion euros and a margin of 25 percent. Infineon intends to present the figures for the quarter on May 4th.

Meanwhile, Micron announced sales of $3.5 billion to $3.9 billion for its third fiscal quarter, more than analysts had expected at best. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra sees an easing in customer inventories and assumes a steady improvement in the balance between supply and demand in the industry. In the course of the past year, a slump in demand had prompted chip customers to cancel orders and initially reduce their own inventories. Consumer demand for electronic consumer goods such as smartphones, PCs and tablets in particular fell due to the economic slowdown.

Infineon has also recently felt the weaker demand in this area, but CEO Jochen Hanebeck sees the group’s big plus in the special chips for industrial power supply and for the automotive industry, and here especially for future topics such as autonomous driving and electric cars.

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