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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jmac who wrote (31992)	8/17/1999 5:45:00 PM
From: William Griffin	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 70976

Applied Materials surprises Wall Street New orders jump 140% from the year-ago quarter By Janet Haney, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 4:43 PM ET Aug 17, 1999 Silicon Stocks Hardware Report SANTA CLARA, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Applied Materials put one over on investors Tuesday when it reported third-quarter earnings that were 8 cents a share better than the consensus estimate. The supplier of wafer fabrication systems said its net income for the period was $244.4 million, or 61 cents a share, vs. $70.6 million, or 19 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. The consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call called for the company to earn 53 cents per share. Sales for the third quarter were $1.4 billion, a jump from the year-earlier number of $884.5 million. The company's stock jumped 1 1/4 to close at 71 3/4 Tuesday, with 8.4 million shares changing hands. The stock then slid to about 70 in after-hours trading on Instinet. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied (AMAT: news, msgs) said new orders in the quarter were $1.5 billion, a 140 percent leap from the $608 million reported in the year-ago period. "Our new orders this quarter were driven by both capacity and technology requirements for 0.18-micron production and pilot line applications," said James Morgan, the company's chief executive, in a press release. Additionally, gross margins were 48.7 percent, up from 44.6 percent in the year-earlier third quarter. "We believe the market for semiconductor equipment may double over the next five years," Morgan added.