NEC Corp posted group pretax profit for the half-year that rose 7% to 65.2bn yen ($536m). The Japanese microelectronics and hardware giant says that slow sales growth in communications equipment and computers was offset largely by strong demand for application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Overall microelectronic devices sales rose 14.9% to 528bn yen in spite of declining DRAM prices. Computer sales – which increased only 1.4% to 915.2bn yen – were hit by slowing demand in the Japanese market, while communications equipment sales rose 8% to 825.4bn yen. NEC expects the strength that saved the first half of the year to be ongoing, projecting a 106% increase in sales of electronic devices for the full year through March.
