Monday November 12, 12:48 PM
Flextronics says industry rebound still elusive
By Jennifer Tan
sg.news.yahoo.com
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore-based contract manufacturer Flextronics Ltd says the global electronics industry recovery remains elusive despite some bright spots in sectors like mobile handset demand.
"We've got some (positive) indicators, but it's still pretty rough out there," Flextronics vice president Jim Sacherman told Reuters in an interview.
Sacherman said the world's second largest electronics manufacturing services provider after U.S.-based Solectron Corp was seeing improvements in sectors like mobile handsets.
This should eventually lead to a pick-up in networking infrastructure demand, he added. "We are also seeing a bit of a pick-up in circuit-board prototyping, an indication that the circuit board business may rebound in the future."
But Sacherman refused to be drawn into assessing the time frame for the industry's bottom.
"Flextronics has given guidance that our top line (revenues) will be moving up slightly, but as far as the whole economy and the electronics business is concerned, we've never given a prediction whether we are at the bottom or close to it."
In October, Flextronics reported a net loss of US$329.8 million or 69 cents per diluted share in the fiscal second quarter ended September 30, compared with a net profit of $49.9 million, or 10 cents, a year ago.
The company's major manufacturing hubs are Mexico, Brazil, Hungary, Poland and China. Its key customers include mobile phone equipment makers Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, as well as networking giant Cisco and computer makers Compaq and Hewlett Packard.
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