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Good news from German industry: chip and semiconductor manufacturer Infineon has posted a record turnover.
The technology group based in Neubiberg near Munich increased its revenues by 13 percent year-on-year to 4.2 billion euros in the third fiscal quarter, according to dpa. Profit also developed very positively, rising by 39 percent to 423 million euros.
The market environment has improved and the upturn is in full swing, said CEO Jochen Hanebeck. “More and more of our target markets are showing a positive trend,” he stressed.
Demand remains particularly strong for power supply solutions for AI data centres, which the manager described as the most important growth driver. The company is also benefiting from rising investment in network infrastructure worldwide. Orders in the automotive business are also picking up noticeably.
Key growth drivers: cars and AI
The automotive business is Infineon’s largest division and accounts for just under half of its revenue. In the past, this area also suffered from the weakness of the car industry.
Now the trend is pointing upwards again: orders are increasing, albeit less dynamically than in the second-largest business segment, Power & Sensor Systems. That unit grew by about a third compared with the same quarter last year.
The main drivers of demand are servers and the massive expansion of data centres for artificial intelligence.
Infineon has had an eventful history. The company was created in 1999 when Siemens spun off its semiconductor business, and it went public later that same year.
Its roots, however, go back much further: the business grew out of Siemens’ long tradition in electronics and research, which began in the first half of the 20th century.
Rapid response to changing times
In its early years Infineon focused mainly on memory chips, microcontrollers and communication semiconductors. At the beginning of the 2000s the company came under pressure as the chip industry slid into crisis, and in 2006 it spun off its memory chip business as a separate company under the name Qimonda, which later became insolvent.
Infineon then reshaped its strategy, increasingly concentrating on high-growth markets: energy-efficient semiconductors, power electronics, sensors and chips for the automotive industry.
Through acquisitions such as the purchase of US company International Rectifier in 2015 and US rival Cypress Semiconductor in 2020, Infineon further strengthened its position in areas such as electric mobility, renewable energy and connected technologies.