Mav, it would appear the TER price weakness is due, at least in part, to the drop in this quarter's BtB ratio. Here is what H&Q has to say about that. Jeff
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History of bookings fluctuations. Looking back, large fluctuations in
the company's bookings are not unusual. Q4C98 saw a 52% sequential increase
in bookings, following three straight quarters of negative growth. This may
not seem surprising considering what happened in the industry during 1998, but
the fluctuations continued in 1999. C99 saw quarter over quarter bookings
growth of 19% and 29% in the first two quarters, respectively, only to be
followed by a third quarter decline of (14%). This was however, followed by
tremendous growth of 40% in Q4C99 and most recently 50% in Q1C00. Thus,
sequential bookings fluctuations seem to have a history at Teradyne. The
aforementioned test house loading up in Q1C00 and large orders in the last few
days of the quarter only helped to exaggerate these difficulties. As such, we
believe that the recent decline in bookings was a temporary event and is not
indicative of a reversal of the positive trend in the business environment. |
