TER CEO:booking will be seq up,increasing shipment in Q3, mem biz coming back
Teradyne CEO Chamillard on 2nd-Qtr, 3rd-Qtr Orders: Comment
7/19/00 10:57:00 AM
Source: Bloomberg News
Boston, July 19 (Bloomberg) -- Teradyne Inc. Chief Executive George Chamillard
comments in an interview on second-quarter orders and sales and orders this quarter at
the biggest maker of semiconductor-testing tools.
Teradyne's orders fell to $826.4 million, after two previous periods of at least 40 percent
growth. The company had predicted bookings of $1 billion. On investor reaction to the
decline in orders:
''This is as frustrating as can be. You put out earnings well above estimates, you grow
shipments to a record level, profits up sequentially 25 percent. Everything's a record. You
come in with the second-highest bookings quarter ever, and everybody trashes you. I
think it's simple. Look at what we had in orders. We had some real big spikes at the end
of Q1. If you took the bookings in the last week of Q1 and moved them into Q2, number
would have been sequentially up every quarter. That's great news, and that's the story.
You do the right thing, make the right operational move and get it booked. You end up
with a tremendous spike in Q1 and then a drop in Q2, and you get hammered.'' On lower
orders from subcontractors that test chips:
''We certainly didn't get a follow-on of the same strength from testing houses we had in
Q1, but I don't know. The test houses, they're the closest-in view that anybody has. I think
they're going to get some (tools) in place, see what capacity really is, and if demand for
semiconductors continues to hold up, the test houses will have to be back at it (buying
tools).'' On the outlook for third quarter:
''Certainly against (second quarter), bookings have a good shoot at being sequentially up
next quarter for sure. Do I see a record $1 billion? I don't know. We've told everyone
we've been increasing shipments at about $100 million a quarter for several quarters in a
row. I think we're going to do it again in Q3.'' On rising demand for memory testers:
''We're seeing the memory business coming back. Memory has been down for a long
time, and we had probably the best bookings we've had in over two years. We'll introduce
a new memory test at the end of the year, and staying alive and staying well in the basic
(dynamic random access memory) business is critical for us to exploit that when we
introduce it.'' |
