By Hakan Ersen and Miranda Murray
BERLIN (Reuters) -German chipmaker Infineon slightly raised its full-year profit guidance on Tuesday after reporting stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings, and said global semiconductor markets had begun to recover despite lingering tariff concerns.
It said it was well-placed to take advantage of the increase in semiconductor demand, including from the car sector and AI data centres.
Shares fluctuated after the results, rising by 4.2% at 1049 GMT after an early fall of 1.9%.
Infineon’s segment result margin – its preferred measure of operating profitability – climbed to 18% for the fiscal third quarter ending in June, beating analysts’ expectations of 15.8%.
The company credited the performance to a faster-than-anticipated rebound in its Green Industrial Power and Power & Sensor Systems divisions, driven by rising demand for energy-efficient technologies and power semiconductors used in data centres.
“The semiconductor markets are slowly recovering from the prolonged downturn,” said Infineon CEO Jochen Hanebeck in a conference call.
Hanebeck reaffirmed expectations that sales from Infineon’s chip business for AI centres would double to around 600 million euros ($692 million) for the fiscal year.
In response, Infineon raised its full-year segment result margin guidance to a high-teens percentage, up from the mid-teens range projected earlier, partly due to lower investments.
The company revised its capital expenditure forecast for the fiscal year to 2.2 billion euros, down slightly from the previous estimate of 2.3 billion euros.
Fourth-quarter revenue, adjusted for currency effects, is expected to rise to 3.9 billion euros, up from 3.7 billion euros in the third quarter.
Infineon clarified its previous full-year sales forecast from May of a slight decline from the previous year’s 14.96 billion euros and now predicts around 14.6 billion euros.
Although the overall revenue trajectory fell short of some expectations, analysts were upbeat.
“With tariff uncertainty subsiding, we remain positive on the cyclical and structural growth outlook, and further margin recovery,” Janardan Menon of Jefferies said.
($1 = 0.8671 euros)
(Reporting by Miranda Murray and Hakan Ersen, Editing by Ludwig Burger)
