Credence Orders, Revs Skyrocket in Q1
Online staff -- Electronic News, 2/19/2004
Increases abounded at test player Credence Systems Corp. in its fiscal Q1.
The company saw net sales jump 18 percent sequentially and 86 percent year-over-year in for the quarter ended Jan. 31, coming in at $68.1 million.
Net loss of $11.5 million also gained ground, showing a near 50 percent improvement compared to the company's fiscal Q4.
But the big news at Credence was orders. Results of $94.2 million were up 55 percent from prior quarter orders of $60.9 million, yielding a net book-to-bill ratio of 1.38. Meanwhile, net orders were up more than 133 percent from the same quarter a year ago.
"We are pleased to report the strongest quarterly revenue and bookings performance in nearly three years with significantly better gross margin and book-to-bill numbers," said Graham Siddall, chairman and CEO of Credence, in a statement. "We achieved positive cash flow this quarter, ahead of plan, and we expect to be profitable in the second fiscal quarter.
"Fifty-four percent of our bookings were generated by products introduced in the last eighteen months and we are seeing strong demand across all of our major product lines with particular growth in the flash, mixed-signal and wireless communications sectors," he continued.
"In general, we believe the industry's upward momentum across nearly every market segment is a strong indication that we are in the early stages of a broadbased recovery."
Revenue for Q2 is expected to be $84 million to $87 million, with further improvements in gross margins to the range of 50 percent to 52 percent. The book-to- bill ratio is expected to remain above 1.0 in the upcoming quarter, Credence said. |
