(Yicai) Aug. 19 -- Shares of GigaDevice Semiconductor fell despite the leading Chinese flash memory chip designer reporting a 1,092 percent increase in net profit in the first half of the year, driven by strong demand.

GigaDevice [SHA: 603986] closed 7.6 percent down at CNY403.71 (USD59.87) in Shanghai today.

Net profit neared CNY6.9 billion (USD1 billion) in the six months ended June 20, compared with CNY575.5 million (USD85.3 million) a year earlier, the Beijing-based company said in its semiannual earnings report yesterday. Revenue soared 179 percent to CNY11.6 billion (USD1.7 billion).

The memory chip industry faced tight supply in the first half, driving both sales and prices of the company’s products and boosting the profitability of its memory business, GigaDevice noted. Shipments of its microcontroller products logged solid growth, thanks to strong demand from the industrial, consumer, and automotive sectors.

Improvements in both revenue scale and quality led to a surge in the firm’s overall operating performance, GigaDevice pointed out.

Gains from changes in fair value expanded by CNY2.221 billion to CNY2.228 billion as of June 30 from a year earlier, mainly because of the higher fair value of the company’s securities investments at the end of the reporting period, the company said.

GigaDevice’s research and development investment soared 41 percent to about CNY966 million in the period.

Editor: Futura Costaglione