Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world’s third-largest maker of customised chips, posted a smaller-than-expected loss in the second quarter as orders improved.

 

The net loss was US$39.4 million ($56.9 million), compared with a profit of US$43.4 million a year earlier, the Singapore-based company said in a statement today. That’s narrower than the median US$44.7 million loss estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of four analysts. Sales fell 24% to US$349 million.

Chartered joins Intel Corp., the world’s biggest chipmaker, and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. in beating analysts’ estimates as orders recover and clients finish trimming inventory stockpiles. Chartered last month forecast a net loss of between US$45 million and US$53 million in the quarter, less than an April projection for a deficit of US$54 million to US$64 million.

 

Chartered fell 1.3% to USS$2.24 as of 11:48 a.m. in Singapore trading, while the benchmark Straits Times Index added 1.4%. The stock has climbed 87% this year.

 

The chipmaker may be benefiting from the ongoing “re-stocking” in the technology industry, James Lim, an analyst at DMG & Partners Securities Pte in Singapore, said by phone yesterday.