U.S. chip companies forecast piecemeal recovery
Posted on Sun, Apr. 21, 2002
siliconvalley.com
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Semiconductor companies, battered by declining revenue and shrinking profits in the past year, are starting to forecast the return of modest growth, suggesting that some sectors of the beleaguered industry are rebounding.
Chip companies that reported quarterly results in the past week met Wall Street expectations. More importantly, analysts and executives said, many forecast sales growth of as much as 20 percent for the current quarter from the prior one.
But while last year's recession flattened every segment of the semiconductor industry and knocked some $83 billion out of global sales, the recovery is emerging a patch at a time, and more slowly for those that depend on the PC industry, like leader Intel Corp. , analysts said.
``It's sectors of the semiconductor business that are coming back now, not the industry as a whole,'' said Arun Veerappan, an analyst at Robertson Stephens. |
