Japan's Advantest sees memory demand for AI boosting chip tester business

Japan's Advantest said on Wednesday it sees growing demand for its chip testing equipment for memory used for artificial intelligence tasks while reporting a drag from weak electronics sales.

Advantest said it sees sales of memory testers reaching 244 billion yen ($1.65 billion) in the financial year ending March, an increase of 5 billion yen from its October outlook but down a quarter on the same period a year earlier.

"In order to fulfil all the demand increase in the market we need to make further efforts," Advantest CEO Yoshiaki Yoshida told an earnings briefing.


Advantest sees the overall memory tester market reaching roughly $1.3 billion-$1.6 billion this year compared with around $1.1 billion last year.

The company's operating profit fell 35% to 26.8 billion yen in the October-December quarter as weak consumer demand for smartphone and PCs weighed on sales.

In the third quarter around 34% of sales were in China, which is rapidly expanding chipmaking capacity amid tensions with the United States, compared with 45% in the same period a year earlier.

The company's shares closed down 0.5% ahead of its earnings and have gained a fifth this year, outperforming peers such as Tokyo Electron and Lasertec.