THE pay of Mike Hickey, Wolfson Microelectronics' chief executive, dropped by nearly a quarter last year to £315,000 as the company saw its losses more than double, but he could net as much as £1.7 million for 2014.

Wolfson's annual report revealed that Mr Hickey received no annual bonus for last year, after having received £107,000 in 2012.

He took a basic salary of £283,000 for the 52 weeks to December 29, up from £276,000 the year before.

On top of this he received benefits, such as a car allowance and private healthcare worth £12,000 and pension benefits totalling £19,000.

Wolfson said that for 2014, Mr Hickey could receive a maximum of £1.7m including long-term incentives that he would not be able to cash in until the end of 2017.

If he merely meets his targets his package would be £759,000.

If targets are missed he will receive £315,000 in salary, pension and benefits.

The drop in pay follows a tough year for Wolfson in what it described as a "volatile" consumer device market.

The microchip maker was affected by the withdrawal of Blackberry from the smartphone arena, lower sales of the Microsoft Surface tablet and the quicker than expected movement of consumers from 3G to 4G, which hit some sales at its biggest customer Samsung.

But better revenue from other customers meant Wolfson's total revenue was flat at $179.4 million (£110m), against $179.7m for the previous year.

However, pre-tax losses widened from $9.3m to $20.3m. That included $2.4m of severance costs as well as a $1.7m writedown related to some older technology.