Infineon Technologies, the German chipmaker, warned Thursday of a wider operating loss in its communications unit this quarter because a project to supply equipment to Nokia had been delayed.
A spokesman for the company said that Infineon had also received lower orders than expected for an unidentified project to supply chips for high-speed Internet phones.
Infineon, whose chief executive, Wolfgang Ziebart, said this week he would step down early over differences on strategy, said Thursday it now expected a bigger operating loss and flat sales at its communications unit, which brings in about a third of the revenue at
Infineon’s core businesses.
Infineon shares fell 63.5 cents Thursday, or 10.1 percent, to close in Frankfurt at euro 5.625.
Other chipmakers have noted weakness in the communications market. Texas Instruments last month cited caution among a broad customer base and weak demand for high-end mobile phones.
On Wednesday, the research firm Gartner said mobile phone sales in Western Europe fell sharply in the first three months of the year.
Infineon’s delayed supply deal with Nokia is for single chips for ultralow-cost phones aimed at developing markets. Nokia said its development of these phones was on target and it would not be affected by Infineon’s announcement because it had multiple suppliers for the project.
“This does not increase at all confidence in cell phone market development,” said Hannu Rauhala, an analyst at Pohjola Bank.
Analysts speculated that the unidentified customer that had placed lower orders for high-speed chips was Apple, which was expected to announce its new third-generation, or 3G, iPhone early next month. Infineon’s increased production run would have been a significant ramp-up of the high-speed chips, called Hsdpa or high-speed downlink packet access.
“In our view the profit warning has been caused by ramp changes of next generation iPhone,” Nicolas Gaudois of UBS wrote, saying…