OT -- a taste of AMAT's report?
Here's the report from Tokyo Electron. Sorry if it's been already posted.
ST
biz.yahoo.com
Friday November 10, 4:28 am Eastern Time
Tokyo Electron H1 profit surges 9-fold
(UPDATE: Updates with company comment par 8, detail throughout)
By Yuka Obayashi
TOKYO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Japan's leading supplier of semiconductor making equipment, Tokyo Electron Ltd, reported on Friday a nine-fold jump in group net profit in the past half-year on surging orders from chipmakers worldwide.
Group net profit for the April-September period soared 834 percent to 29.42 billion yen ($273.4 million) from 3.15 billion yen in the same period a year earlier, while sales grew 78.6 percent to 328 billion yen.
The upbeat results exceeded Tokyo Electron's August forecast of 23 billion yen net profit on 315.5 billion yen in sales, lifting its shares -- which had been down just before the results were announced -- to end 1.01 percent higher at 9,040 yen.
The firm, owned 37 percent by foreign shareholders as of the end of March, said sales of semiconductor production systems nearly doubled in the six months to the end of September.
It benefited as domestic and foreign chipmakers raised capital investment plans to boost production capacity to meet roaring demand for chips used in computers and cell phones.
For the year to March 31, the firm raised its group net profit forecast to a record 61 billion yen from a previous forecast of 56 billion yen and more than triple the previous year's 19.85 billion yen.
It also raised its annual dividend forecast to 38 yen per share from a previous 34 yen estimate and its full-year capital spending plan to 60 billion yen from 44 billion yen.
``Orders of chip equipment are expected to remain as strong at least until next spring,'' Executive Manager Yuichi Honda told a news conference.
ATTRACTIVE BUT MAY REMAIN UNLOVED
Analysts said, however, the buoyant results and outlook were in line with their expectations and the news would do little to reverse the weak trend in its share price.
Shares in Tokyo Electron have fallen 36 percent so far this year, underperforming the Tokyo Stock Exchange's electric appliances index, which has fallen 25 percent.
It has been hit particularly hard in the past two months amid investor concern that weakness in personal computer and telecom equipment spending overseas would prompt chipmakers to lower capital spending next year.
The sharp sell-off has trimmed its price earnings ratio to 20-30, from a peak of more than 100, analysts said.
``The decline in Tokyo Electron's share price reflected bearish sentiment among global investors toward global chip-related stocks fuelled by the recent fall in dynamic random access memory (DRAM) prices...not the fundamentals of its performance,'' said Goldman Sachs senior analyst Shin Horie.
``Even though Tokyo Electron's business has shown no sign of slowdown, and its shares look attractive in terms of valuation, the price may not rebound until all the bad news about the chip market is factored into global markets, which we expect early next year.''
(Additional reporting by Ritsuko Ando) |
