Dialog Semi says not seeing hit to demand from Apple
BARCELONA (Reuters) - Dialog Semiconductor said on Wednesday it was not seeing a hit to demand from its main customer, Apple Inc , after some suppliers issued profit warnings due to weakness in iPhone sales. The Anglo-German chip designer said its power management products were installed in many Apple products - and not just the latest iPhones that can be unlocked using facial recognition technology. "We are not so specific to the 3-D phone or camera, we are across all the products," CEO Jalal Bagherli told the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference in Barcelona. "For us, because of the broader base with this customer, it's less of an issue." Fresh warnings this week from screen maker Japan Display <6740.T>, British chipmaker IQE and Lumentum Holdings , the main supplier of the FaceID technology, have hit the stocks of companies in the Apple food chain. Frankfurt-listed Dialog has struck a $600 million deal to transfer 300 staff and patents to Apple key to designing the next iteration of the main Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) that manages an iPhone's battery resources. Dialog shares were up 2.5 percent in late afternoon trading on Wednesday and have gained more than a third in value since the Apple deal was announced on Oct. 10. It is still selling its existing generation of main PMICs to Apple, whose iPads also pack the technology, for example. Bagherli said the demand picture was volatile and also mixed. "Some products will have less volume, but others will have higher volume. So we have more chance of compensating (for) changes," he said. "It is a volatile market, so there will be change almost weekly in terms of the forecast for the rest of the quarter or into the following quarter." Bagherli said Dialog had also scored a couple of 2019 design wins from Apple for sub-PMICs, which power device features such as cameras, and one for companion chargers, an on-board feature that helps accelerates battery charging. (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; editing by David Evans)
