[originaltext] STMicroelectonics NV, Infineon Technologies AG and United Mic

STMicroelectonics NV, Infineon Technologies AG and United Microelectronics Corp reported improved financial results as sales of chips used in cars, mobile phones and personal computers increased.
    STMicroelectonics, based in Geneva, reported first quarter net income of US＄132 million, compared with a loss of US＄31 million a year earlier. Infineon says its net loss in the fiscal second quarter narrowed to 26 million euros (US＄32.3 million) from 114 million euros (US＄141 million). Europe’s two biggest chipmakers beat analysts’ estimates. United Microelectronics’ first quarter profit rose eightfold to NT＄12.3 billion (US＄384 million), missing estimates.
    The three chipmakers says hey expect to benefit from increasing demand for mobile phones. Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, expects global sales of handsets to grow at least 15 percent in 2006.
    STMicroelectronics says sales this quarter will rise 2 percent to 8 percent from the first quarter. Munich-based Infineon expects operating profit and sales to fall at the two units it aims to keep, following a planned exit from the memory chip business.
    Analysts expect STMicroelectronics’s profit to reach US＄104 million, for a loss of 76 million euros (US＄95 million) at Infineon, surveys show. United Microelectronics missed estimates, because phone chip prices fell and onetime gains were lower than expected.
    STMicroelectronics says its gross margin could reach 35.8 percent, plus or minus 1 percentage point, in the second quarter. That fell short of expectations that the company could record a gross margin -- the percentage of sales left after substracting manufacturing costs — of as high as 36.7 percent in the second quarter, according to six analysts in a Bloomberg survey.