Applied Materials may study ending order forecasts
Thursday June 3, 2:45 pm ET
SAN FRANCISCO, June 3 (Reuters) - Applied Materials Inc. (NasdaqNM:AMAT - News), the world's largest supplier of microchip-making tools, may be willing to look into halting its long-standing practice of forecasting product orders, the company's chief financial officer said on Thursday.
Order forecasts, issued by virtually all chip equipment makers as an indicator of future revenue, are a major trigger for semiconductor equipment stocks. Some analysts have raised concerns that orders are overly relied upon and are subject to wild fluctuations due to cancellations and delays.
"There's a lot of people that have given me that input," CFO Joseph Bronson said at a Citigroup Smith Barney investor conference, in response to a question. "I think we need to study it, talk to our attorneys, ensure that if we did something like that, would the SEC have an issue with it."
Bronson, however, said he would be hesitant to make the change because it could be viewed as reducing transparency, and also because investors have for years used the measurement to judge the potential of semiconductor equipment companies.
"I think eliminating disclosures is essentially eliminating transparency, and eliminating transparency is not viewed to be good corporate governance these days," Bronson said. "I think it's a difficult thing to do, because you've been doing it for so long and to eliminate it just like that actually might create more problems." |
