SpeedFam-IPEC's biggest competitor today is clearly AMAT. One of the potential contenders in the future, though, is Lam. Lam announced blow-out earnings results today after the close (28 cents vs. analysts' estimates of 8-15 cents). The only mention of CMP in their press release quotes Bagley as saying, "We have penetrated the CMP market with our Teres(tm) system which is exceeding industry technology and reliability standards."
Of course, most of Lam's revenues are etch-related, as opposed to CMP, so the fact that Lam reported an excellent quarter and SFAM reported a bad one does not necessarily mean that Lam is winning SFAM customers away from us. Without hearing the cc, my initial interpretation is that this is an additional sign that the industry is strong, but that SpeedFam is not participating significantly in this upturn to date. SpeedFam-IPEC remains attractive as a potential takeover target, and I continue to expect them to struggle back to a modest market share position in calendar Q4 or Q1 of 2000.
If anyone listens to the Lam conference call tonight, I'd appreciate posting anything that's relevant to CMP on the Lam and/or SFAM thread. With three of my stocks reporting tonight, I will listen to as many conference calls as I can get to, but Lam's not at the top of the list for me.
Thanks,
Mr. Sam
For full disclosure, I have not bought or sold any SFAM stock since my last posting. SFAM represents 3.1% of my portfolio. |
