May 12--TOKYO -- Elpida Memory Inc. said Tuesday it posted a group net loss for the second straight year in fiscal 2008 ended March 31, hit by slumping demand and tumbling chip prices amid the global economic slowdown.

Elpida, Japan's largest maker of dynamic random access memory chips used mainly for personal computers, said the fiscal 2008 group net loss expanded to 178.87 billion yen from 23.54 billion yen in the previous year.

The global economic slowdown further dampened demand for chips, becoming a new headache for the industry in addition to oversupply and tumbling chip prices.

Consolidated sales declined 18.4 percent to 331.05 billion yen due to a 52 percent plunge in the average sales price amid falling DRAM prices and the yen's appreciation of more than 10 percent against the U.S. dollar, despite an increase in chip shipment volume, the company said.

Group operating loss swelled to 147.39 billion yen from the previous year's 24.94 billion yen as sales price declines outpaced the firm's efforts to cut costs, it said.

The world's No. 3 chipmaker did not give any earnings forecast for fiscal 2009 through next March. But it said output, measured in memory capacity, will grow 20 percent in the year.

The world economic slowdown has roiled the semiconductor industry, forcing chipmakers, including Elpida, to carry out restructuring efforts to ride out the crisis and restore financial health.

"We can get through this quarter (through June) without doing what we thought (we would need to do) in the previous quarters," President Yukio Sakamoto told a press conference, indicating that the company does not need financial support from the government for now.

"I'm not saying we are going to apply for public funds or that we are not going to do so," Sakamoto said. "We are considering the matter." In April, the government set up an aid program to help struggling nonfinancial firms reeling from the worldwide economic slowdown.

The program allows such Japanese companies in the nonfinancial sector to receive capital from the state-backed Development Bank of Japan on condition that the government cover 50 to 80 percent of possible future investment losses.

Sakamoto said the company could become profitable if prices of DRAM chips move between $1.50 and $2.00 compared with around $1.30 at present. "The market as a whole improved a bit in the January-March period and we expect it will improve greatly in the April-June period."

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