Toshiba, which competes with Samsung Electronics in chips and with Areva and General Electric in nuclear power, is likely to miss the market consensus figure for its quarterly operating profit, according to the Nikkei business daily.

Both Seagate and rival Western Digital have seen demand for disk drives return even as supplies of the devices remain low, pushing up profits.

Hard disk drive maker Western Digital has posted a sharp increase in its fiscal second-quarter profit as sales grew amid a recovery in the technology sector and the company trimmed costs.

Spansion has reported net sales of US$307.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, which marked its second consecutive profitable quarter with net income on a US GAAP basis of US$4.3 million.

The world's largest manufacturer of computer memory chips and flat screen TVs has predicted an operating profit of up to US$3.44 billion for the fourth quarter of 2009 after racking up its first ever loss a year earlier. It did not give a net profit estimate.

Flash memory vendor Spansion Inc. Thursday (Dec. 31) reported its first quarterly profit since going public—despite declining sales—and said it plans to emerge from bankruptcy early in 2010.

Stock market insiders say Samsung Electronics will easily achieve an operating profit of more than two trillion won (US$1.71 billion) and Hynix of more than 600 billion won for the quarter.

Micron Technology swung to a fiscal first-quarter profit—its first in three years—on higher sales volumes and prices as well as a large prior-year write-down.

Elpida Memory may post its first annual operating profit in three years as growth in demand outpaces industry production, according to company CEO Yukio Sakamoto.

Applied Materials has announced it will cut 10% and 12% of its global workforce over the next 18 months, with half of the cuts in the US. Applied saw net income for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter slip 40% on year.

Toshiba eked out a small profit in the July-September quarter on cost-cutting and higher sales of memory chips. The electronics company reported a net profit of 100 million yen (US$1.1 million) for the fiscal second quarter, up from a net loss of 26.9 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.

Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and LCD screens, reported on Friday its best ever quarterly net profit on a resurgent memory sector and forecast a strong 2010.

Amkor Technology has reported net sales of US$616 million for the third quarter, up 22% sequentially but down 14% on year. Net income for the quarter reached US$81 million, compared to US$9 million in the prior quarter and US$29 million a year ago.

IC packaging and testing service provider STATS ChipPAC has reported net income of US$25.1 million for third-quarter 2009, compared to profits of US$2.2 million in the prior quarter and US$7.9 million a year ago. Gross margin for the quarter reached 20.2% compared to 15.1% in the second quarter and 18.5% in third-quarter 2008.

Toshiba has estimated its operating income for the six months ended September 30, 2009 to reach 2 billion yen (US$21.7 million), compared with its earlier projection for a loss. Its net income estimate for the first half has also been revised upward to a loss of 58 billion yen.

"Lam Research had strong shipments and revenue performance in the September quarter, allowing the company to return to profitability and generate positive cash flow once again," company president and CEO Steve Newberry said in a statement.

TriQuint earned US$10.5 million, or US$0.07 per share in the third quarter compared with US$11.8 million, or US$0.08 cents a share in third-quarter 2008.

Seagate's first 2010 fiscal quarter (ended October 2, 2009) brought cheering news and a better outlook as its numbers continue to recover and it beings sampling its solid state drive (SSD) with OEMs.

"We are encouraged by improved industry fundamentals and our increasingly diversified global markets, which bode well for further growth in Q4 and in 2010," said Eli Harari, SanDisk chairman and CEO.

Samsung SDI, the world's second largest maker of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, posted its biggest profit in five years, driven by record shipments and sales of the product and gains from its mobile-display unit. Third-quarter net income rose 48 percent to 87 billion won (US$75 million) from 58.8 billion won a year earlier.

"I am encouraged by the broad-based recovery in our business," said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx President and CEO. "September quarter operating margin was 20%, up from 15% in the prior quarter."

ASML generated net income of 20 million euro in the third quarter of 2009 compared to a net loss in the prior quarter. "ASML's third quarter sales doubled from the second quarter, stemming from technology transition demand for our immersion lithography systems as new DRAM devices are introduced and as Foundry customers are ramping 40nm products..."

Samsung Electronics has estimated it made a record quarterly operating profit of 4.1 trillion won (3.5 billion dollars) in July-September. Consolidated sales for the quarter are estimated at 36 trillion won, up from 30.27 trillion a year ago.

Samsung, which saw its operating profits jump five-fold to 2.5 trillion won in the second quarter, is expected to report 3.8 trillion won in the third, analysts said. The growth can be attributable to increases in chip and panel prices.

National Semiconductor's fiscal first-quarter profits dropped 63% as revenues fell by a third, but the analog chip maker indicated demand was rebounding.

Despite its increased cost cutting course, Infineon plans no further job cuts.

"The third quarter will be better from the previous quarter as chip prices are in the normalization stages after a years-long slump," said Kwon Oh-hyun, president of Samsung's chip division.