MU Technology's Net Easily Tops Forecasts
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. (NYSE:MU - news) on Wednesday reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that easily topped analyst forecasts, buoyed by a rebounding semiconductor market and a shortage of the memory chips widely used in personal computers.
The Boise, Idaho-based company said that for the period ended Aug. 31, it had net income of $726.7 million, or $1.20 a share, compared with a year-ago loss of $17.4 million, or 3 cents. Sales more than doubled to $2.57 billion from $1.08 billion in the year ago period.
The results topped analyst forecasts of 96 cents a share, according to First Call Thomson/Financial, which tracks Wall Street estimates.
Although prices for dynamic random-access memory chips, or DRAMs, have declined slightly in recent weeks, the memory-chip industry is still struggling to meet demand. Micron's semiconductor sales almost tripled to $2.29 billion from $820.9 million.
Micron Technology shares rose 3-7/8 to 46-15/16 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) ahead of the earnings report, which came after the market close. The shares are well off their year-high of 97-1/2, but up from a year-low of 29-1/8.
Micron, the largest U.S. maker of memory chips, also benefited from falling production costs, enabled by its ability to shrink the size of circuits that are on each chip. That lets it get more chips from a single wafer, boosting margins.
Micron said megabit sales in the quarter were up on the order of 20 percent and for the full year rose about 140 percent from 1999.
For the full year, Micron had net income of $1.5 billion, or $2.56 a share, compared with a loss of $69 million, or 13 cents a share, in 1999. Sales soared to $7.3 billion from $3.8 |
