Xilinx reports profit, sees revenues rising
4/17/2003 7:52:45 PM
www2.marketwatch.com
By Jim Christie
SAN FRANCISCO, April 17 (Reuters) - Xilinx Inc. (XLNX) , a top designer of programmable microchips, on Thursday posted higher quarterly profits and forecast that chip sales outside the battered communications market would drive current-quarter revenues past Wall Street expectations.
Xilinx shares rose to $26.34 in after-market trade after closing up 54 cents, or 2.1 percent, at $26.07 on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
The San Jose, California company said its fiscal fourth-quarter net profit rose to $49.4 million, or 14 cents a share, from $34.3 million, or 10 cents a share, a year ago.
Revenue rose to $305.5 million from $273.5 million a year earlier and from $282.7 million in the prior quarter.
Xilinx, a rival of chipmakers Actel Corp. (ACTL) , Altera Corp. (ALTR) and Lattice Semiconductor Corp. (LSCC) , last month had forecast fourth-quarter revenue at the high end of its previous range of $285 million to $295 million.
The company said it expected first-quarter revenues of up to 5 percent above fourth-quarter levels on improving demand.
Xilinx supplies programmable logic devices that customers use for specific functions to get tech products to market quickly. The company supplies manufacturers in computer, networking, aerospace and some industrial markets, and counts telecom gear maker Lucent Technologies Inc. (LU) and wireless tech company Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) as customers.
EUROPE AND ASIA STRONG
"Sales in the March quarter exceeded our expectations," said Wim Roelandts, president and chief executive of Xilinx.
Sales in Asia and Europe grew by 20 percent and 26 percent, respectively, compared to the prior quarter. Revenues from North American customers rose 2 percent and revenues from Japan shrank 5 percent from the third quarter.
"The strength in Europe was broad-based, while the strength in Asia was driven by increased consumer transfer business from North American customers," Roelandts said. "International sales now represent a record 55 percent of total Xilinx revenue."
Xilinx said 25 percent of fourth-quarter revenues came from sales to data storage equipment makers. Those revenues increased 61 percent from a year earlier, it said.
Another 25 percent of revenues came from consumer, industrial and other customers, Xilinx said. That area of sales rose 85 percent, it said.
Communications customers accounted for 50 percent of fourth-quarter revenues, and revenues from them shrank 17 percent from a year earlier.
January and February were solid booking months while March bookings strengthened after a weak start, Roelandts said.
Xilinx Chief Financial Officer Kris Chellam told Reuters that April bookings have been strong.
"We are entering the June quarter with a bigger backlog than we saw in the March quarter.... We continue to see good strength in the consumer and automotive markets, which are new markets for us," Chellam said.
NEW MARKETS DRIVE SALES
Xilinx said it sees June-quarter revenues up 1 percent to 5 percent from the fourth quarter, which would result in revenues in a range of about $309 million to about $321 million.
Wall Street had on average expected June-quarter sales of $301.2 million, versus year-earlier sales of $289.9 million.
Roelandts said during a conference call that while Xilinx was facing still generally sluggish consumer and business demand, it had not seen any impact from the the war in Iraq or the pneumonia-like SARS virus.
"There's some caution," said Eric Rothdeutsch, an analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey. "It looks like they're really not expecting their core business -- communications, storage and servers -- to grow. It looks like growth is coming from automotive, consumer and industrial."
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