Flash memory chips a boon for Toshiba

TOKYO, JAPAN: Toshiba Corp, Japan's biggest chip maker, eked out a rise in quarterly operating profit on solid demand for its mainstay NAND flash memory chips, and kept its earnings outlook unchanged.

The world's No.2 maker of flash memory chips is becoming increasingly dependent on demand from major client Apple Inc, as its nuclear power business meets regulatory delays in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

Toshiba on Monday posted an operating profit of 76.1 billion yen ($1 billion) for July-September, up from 71 billion yen the previous year on a 3 per cent sales fall.

Its net profit came to 22.2 billion yen against 27.4 billion yen last year.

Toshiba, which has been battling weak sales of its PCs and TVs amid a yen rise, retained its annual forecast for an operating profit of 300 billion yen, above the 281 billion yen consensus estimate of 23 analysts polled by ThomsonReuters.

Shares in Toshiba, which competes with South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co and Hynix Semiconductor Inc in semiconductors and with GE and Areva in nuclear reactors, have fallen 19 per cent this calendar year, broadly in line with Tokyo's electrical machinery subindex.