Novellus Q3 Orders Seen Flat Or Lower
07.18.05, 3:24 PM ET
Banc of America Securities reiterated a "neutral" rating and $23 price target on Novellus Systems (nasdaq: NVLS - news - people ) ahead of the company's second-quarter earnings announcement.
"We expect Novellus' June quarter orders to come in line with their updated guidance of flat to Up 3%." The research firm sees September quarter orders flat to a decrease of 10%. "There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the timing of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's (nyse: TSM - news - people ) orders, and hence we expect companies to guide September quarter on the cautious side." Banc of America said that TSM could place orders in the fourth quarter.
Novellus will report earnings Tuesday. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call are expecting earnings of 21 cents per share on revenue of $329 million.
During SEMICON West, Novellus stressed physical vapor deposition, or PVD, and chemical mechanical planarization, or CMP, as its two largest growth opportunities. "The PVD tool has penetrated multiple chipmakers, we believe the installed base is about 15 customers, thereby pressurizing Applied Materials' (nasdaq: AMAT - news - people ) average selling price, but since most of the penetrations this year are evaluation systems, we do not expect to see any revenue surges in the near future. On the CMP front, Novellus has penetrated a handful of customers." |
