VIA sold NT$2.598 billion ($75.268 million) worth of silicon last month.

That's well down on the NT$3.538 billion it sold during September 2000 - a decline of 26.56 per cent, to be precise. And it's worse than August, too - a surprise, perhaps, given that September is traditionally the best month in Q3 by a fair margin.

VIA sold NT$2.805 billion worth of product in August, making for a 7.4 per cent dip in sales of processors and chipsets through September.

No wonder, then, that the company has cut its fiscal 2001 forecast. VIA says it will now make a profit of $152.4 million, down 37.8 per cent on its previous prediction. Sales for the full year should come in at around $985.5 million, nearly a quarter lower than the figure VIA forecast in April.

The reason? A PC market that proved weaker than expected. A variety of factors contributed to this: the events of 11 September and the pressure Intel is putting on mobo makers to leave VIA's Pentium 4 chipset well alone were two analyst favourites. ®