TG,
Where do I start? Are you actually John Roth posting incognito? Addressing your points:
1. Considerable R&D expenses for customer specific development have been reclassified as COGS as of FY00, so your comparison to FY99 before R&D is seriously flawed.
2. GM was certainly compressed by the ramp of new optical products and new plant build-outs in opto and fiber. Even the bears on the street expect a strong rebound in Q3.
3. Given 18% growth overall and 26% growth in on-going operations, how does your flawed analysis of LU's earnings tell you that LU is having problems growing their top line? In fact, Wireless grew over 50% YoY (30%+ over the last 4Q's, a more accurate measure), Optical equipment grew over 50%, Data networking beat plan by 40% and posted 80% YoY growth. Fiber optic cable grew 80%. Opto-electronics grew 80%. Semiconductors grew nearly 30%. Seems like pretty good top-line growth to me.
4. Why would you compare quarterly results from two different quarters 15 months apart, given seasonality? The YoY compare is from a quarter that had 35% YoY growth from 1998 - 18% is impressive and 400bps higher than the highest estimate on the street. Look at total revenue growth over the last 4 quarters: about 16% as reported, and about 17% excluding divested businesses. BTW Using your method, if you compare NT's March 99 with its December 97 including Bay's revenues, its growth was negative 21%, an annualized rate of -16%. |
