Altera Reports Third Quarter Results
Monday October 21, 4:31 pm ET
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SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 21, 2002--Altera Corporation (Nasdaq:ALTR - News) today announced third quarter sales of $180.1 million, up 1% from the second quarter of 2002, in line with the company's previous expectations. Third quarter sales were 3% ahead of the year-ago quarter. Sales of the company's new products grew 18% sequentially.
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Third quarter net income was $23.4 million, $0.06 per diluted share and compares to second quarter net income of $21.7 million, $0.06 per diluted share. Third quarter gross profit margin was 63.8% of sales and included a favorable gross profit contribution related to the sale of devices from inventory written off in 2001. Excluding this benefit, the gross profit margin was 60.8%.
Altera repurchased 3.1 million shares of its common stock during the quarter at a cost of $36.7 million and ended the quarter with $885.3 million in cash and short-term investments. Altera's Board of Directors has approved an increase in the shares authorized for repurchase under the company's ongoing share repurchase program from 48 million shares to 68 million shares.
"Altera's new products, now 30% of revenues, recorded another strong growth quarter, demonstrating the appeal of Altera's innovative, market-leading technology. These gains reflect our stronger competitive position and design win momentum," said John Daane, president and CEO. "We recently announced the Cyclone(TM) device family, which dramatically extends our reach in high volume, cost sensitive applications that PLDs previously could not address. Market reaction to our Stratix(TM) family of devices has been extremely positive -- the result of an entirely new Altera architecture that delivers unmatched capabilities and performance. Our new product offerings create a product portfolio with growth potential unequalled in the PLD industry."
Altera continued to advance its leadership position in system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions.
The Stratix device family, which began shipping in May, has now accumulated more than 1,600 customer engagements and a growing list of design wins across all markets served by Altera. Four family members, including the EP1S80 device, are now shipping to customers. More than 150 customers have taken delivery of Stratix devices, establishing the broad appeal of this product and setting an Altera new product introduction record. The Stratix device family, manufactured on a 0.13-micron all-copper process, combines a high-performance architecture, unrivaled DSP capabilities and industry-leading memory resources to give Altera customers an ASIC-strength product with all the benefits of programmable logic.
In September, Altera introduced the Cyclone device family, the industry's lowest-cost FPGAs. Unlike the traditional approach that reuses an existing architecture or re-brands an existing product to create a low-cost FPGA, Altera created the innovative Cyclone architecture with a focused combination of features, density, performance and price that puts the Cyclone family in a class by itself. At less than half the cost of comparable PLDs, Cyclone devices target designers of high-volume systems in the consumer, communications, industrial, and automotive markets by delivering the benefits of programmable devices at ASIC prices. Beta software was shipped to customers in July, with broad software support available in September. The Cyclone family will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2003.
Altera introduced Code: DSP, a new initiative to extend the reach of Altera FPGAs into a wide range of mainstream DSP-based applications. The initiative combines a broad range of support services, tools, and a development platform based on the Stratix FPGA platform. As part of this effort, the unique DSP capabilities of Stratix devices can now be extended with the use of an Altera patented technique for building "soft multipliers" that increases the number of available multipliers 500%, enabling Stratix devices to deliver DSP performance beyond that available in any other available FPGA. With Code: DSP, Altera offers the PLD industry's broadest DSP capability so that DSP designers can easily transition to a flexible reconfigurable Altera PLD solution for their needs.
Conference Call and Quarterly Update:
A conference call will be held today at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time to discuss the quarter's results and management's outlook for the fourth quarter. The webcast and subsequent replay will be available on the company's web site at altera.com. A telephonic replay of the call may be accessed later in the day by calling (719) 457-0820 and referencing confirmation code 258712. The telephonic replay will be available for two weeks following the live call.
Altera's fourth quarter business update will be made available on December 4 after the market close and will be posted on the company's web site. Those who do not have access to the Internet may contact Altera's investor relations department directly at (408) 544-7707.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this press release that are not historical are "forward-looking statements," as the term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are generally written in the future tense and/or preceded by words such as "will", "expects", or words that imply or predict a future state. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements in this release involve risks and uncertainty which can cause actual results to differ from those currently anticipated, due to a number of factors, including without limitation, the risk that future performance is dependent on the design performance of software and other tools, customer business environment, Altera's ability to meet product introduction schedules, market acceptance of the company's products, the rate of growth of the company's new products and in particular the Stratix and Cyclone device families, as well as changing economic conditions, and other risk factors discussed in documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this release and, except as required by law, the company does not undertake an obligation to update its forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
About Altera
Altera Corporation (Nasdaq:ALTR - News) is the world's pioneer of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions. Combining programmable logic technology with software tools, intellectual property, and technical services, Altera provides high-value programmable solutions to approximately 14,000 customers worldwide. More information is available at altera.com.
Note to Editors: Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, the stylized Altera logo, specific device designations and all other words that are identified as trademarks and/or service marks are, unless noted otherwise, the trademarks and service marks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
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