Nanya Technology and Inotera, two of Taiwan's leading manufacturers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, yesterday reported mixed results for December.

Nanya Technology had December sales of NT$2.114 billion, a decline of 20.8 percent from November. Inotera, meanwhile, had December sales of NT$3.18 billion, a rise of 7 percent month-on-month and a new high in six months.

On a year-on-year basis, Nanya Technology's figure was a rise of 5.2 percent compared to December 2011. Inotera's was a rise of 13.2 percent year-on-year.

 For the whole last year, Nanya Technology had sales of NT$32.478 billion, a decline of 11.6 percent compared to 2011. Inotera had 2012 sales of NT$35.29 billion, a decline of 5.6 percent year-on-year.

Nanya Technology attributed the monthly decline to a sharp shipment reduction that began in October last year as part of the firm's effort to cut capacity, in the midst of a glut in the industry. December shipments dropped by 30 percent compared to November.

Yet a 14-percent increase in DRAM prices in December offset the shipment decline and contributed to an overall sales reduction of some 20 percent, it said.

Right now, things have improved in the market, where increasing demands for memory products have prompted a capacity boost at Nanya Technology, it said, adding losses in the first quarter will improve significantly from the fourth quarter of last year.

“The current rally in the DRAM market will continue for sometime,” the firm said.