Taipei, Feb. 18 (CNA) MediaTek Inc., one of Taiwan's leading integrated circuit designers, said Tuesday that it has raised its sales forecast for the first quarter after completing a merger with smaller rival MStar Semiconductor Inc.

MediaTek said it has upgraded its sales guidance for the January-March period to NT$41.4 billion-NT$44.6 billion from an earlier estimate of NT$35.0 billion-NT$39.0 billion.

At an investor conference held in late January, MediaTek anticipated its sales for the first quarter would fall 2-10 percent from a quarter earlier due to slow season effects.

But with its merger with MStar being finalized on Feb. 1, MediaTek will book MStar's revenue from February and its first quarter sales will grow accordingly, the company said.

MediaTek completed a tender offer to acquire a 48 percent stake in MStar in August 2012 and then kicked off another stage of consolidation to fully bring MStar under its corporate umbrella.

But the deal was blocked by strong opposition from South Korea and China, which cited antitrust issues, forcing the deal to be postponed repeatedly.

Seoul and China finally gave green lights to the merger in March and August 2013, respectively, which helped MediaTek conclude the merger on Feb. 1.

Shares of MediaTek had added 0.93 percent to NT$433.00 as of 11:53 a.m. on the revised forecast, with 1.64 million shares changing hands. The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange was up 0.22 percent at 8,538.07.

(By Maranda Hsu and Frances Huang)
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