According to Market Research Telecast, Infineon announced on Wednesday that in the past fiscal year, profits more than tripled to 1.17 billion euros and achieved the highest turnover in the company's history. The group, which is currently benefiting from the high demand for chips, is also confident for the coming year and has slightly increased its forecast.
“The demand exceeds the supply by far,” said Reinhard Ploss, Infineon's chief executive officer. “If the manufacturing capacity weren’t limited, even higher growth could have been achieved.”
“2021 was a year on a different level for Infineon,” said Ploss. “We are more powerful than ever, achieved sales of 11 billion euros for the first time in a financial year and significantly increased profitability.”
“In view of the continuing high demand for semiconductors for the energy-efficient and networked world, we expect a strong financial year 2022,” he said. “Then sales should grow to around 12.7 billion euros – plus or minus half a billion. ”
In terms of chip shortage, Ploss said that a certain stabilization is now becoming apparent. Although demand is still higher than supply and there is some catching up to do, the order book is no longer growing as strongly as it was before. The chip shortage will nevertheless persist well into 2022.
The report pointed out that the shortage also led to price increases, but these did not play a major role in Infineon. Inifneon marketing director Helmut Gassel said that most of the planned sales growth in the current year will come from larger volumes.
Market Research Telecast stated that although many companies are investing heavily in the expansion of chip capacities, Ploss does not fear that after the current scarcity has come to an end, the construction of too many factories could lead to an oversupply in the industry.
