FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Computer chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG said Friday its third-quarter loss widened, a drop blamed on falling prices for memory chips industry wide.

The Munich-based company said it lost euro197 million (US$270 million) in the quarter that ended June 30, worse than the euro146 million (US$200 million) analysts polled by Dow Jones had expected, and greater than the euro23 million loss a year earlier.

Sales fell 11 percent to euro1.75 billion (US$2.4 billion) from euro1.97 billion a year earlier, failing to meet the euro180 billion (US$247 billion) that analysts had predicted.

Infineon said the loss, its ninth quarterly loss in the last 10 quarters, was largely due to results from its flagging personal computer chip memory maker unit Qimonda AG, which earlier this week said it lost euro218 million (US$299 million) in the quarter, compared with a profit of euro54 million a year ago.

But the German chipmaker also noted progress made at its flagging wireless business which had been buffeted by the bankruptcy of Taiwanese cell phone maker BenQ.

"Infineon excluding Qimonda made further progress toward sustainable profitability," Infineon Chief Executive Wolfgang Ziebart said in a statement. "Going forward, we aim for further improvements in our (earnings before interest margin), and we will continue to strengthen our core businesses."

Excluding Qimonda, Infineon said it posted a pretax profit of euro13 million (US$18 million) compared with a loss of euro51 million a year earlier, with sales up 2 percent to euro1.01 billion (US$1.39 billion) compared to euro995 billion in 2006.