After seeing weak profits in the first half of 2008 and a declining utilization rate for memory card packaging, Taiwan IC Packaging (TICP) remains conservative about company prospect through 2009.

TICP explained the weak profits to sluggish demand for NAND flash. Starting from late May, a crackdown on illegal handsets in China and a price plummet of NAND flash has prompted customers to be conservative over microSD card bookings, said TICP company chairman Hsi-Che Teng.

Having drawn investment from Transcend Information for almost a year, Teng said Transcend has not yet ramped its orders to TICP due to a weak industry status. But Teng stressed that Transcend will release more orders to the company once an industry rebound is observed.