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Technology Stocks : ADI: The SHARCs are circling! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BostonView who wrote (1378)	12/1/1999 8:24:00 AM
From: BostonView	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2882

NORWOOD, Mass., Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) today announced revenues of $431 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 1999, up 45% from the prior year's fourth quarter and 14% above the immediately prior quarter. Diluted earnings per share increased to $0.40, compared to $0.16 for the year-ago quarter, and were up 33% from $0.30 for the third quarter this year. "Continuing strong orders led to fourth-quarter revenues coming in higher than we had anticipated at the beginning of the quarter, with substantial contributions from both analog and DSP products," said Jerald G. Fishman, President and CEO. "Revenues from analog products grew 37% year over year and 11% sequentially, while DSP revenues increased 83% over the same period last year and 26% sequentially. Gross margin improved by 250 basis points sequentially to 52.2% as capacity utilization improved in line with increased production, and as forecast, we realized lower backend unit costs. Operating expenses grew at a rate slightly less than revenues as we raised our investment levels in communications products to respond to the considerable opportunities available to ADI. Our higher sales and higher gross margin provided strong operating leverage, resulting in operating margin increasing to 20.9%, up 330 basis points from the third quarter. Diluted EPS increased $0.10 sequentially to a record-high $0.40, up 150% from the year-earlier period and 33% from the third quarter." "Our balance sheet continued to strengthen during the fourth quarter. Inventories declined by 11 days sequentially and accounts receivable improved by 4 days sequentially. Operating cash flow totaled $129 million, which increased our cash position to $762 million." Mr. Fishman noted that revenues for fiscal 1999 totaled $1.45 billion, up 18% from the prior year's $1.23 billion. Operating profit before taxes increased 54% and fully diluted earnings per share rose to $1.10. "Sales into the communications market continued to accelerate during the fourth quarter," he said. "They were up 25% sequentially and more than 70% year over year, and now account for between 40 and 45% of our total revenues. Much of the demand is due to accelerating bandwidth requirements of the Internet, which is fueling a substantial communications infrastructure build- out. Demand for ADI's communications products is also being aided by the high growth rates of cellular and other wireless products. "In addition," continued Mr. Fishman, "we are seeing good growth in revenues for components used in personal computers. Our products provide important performance enhancements, including thermal and power management, system monitoring, high-speed communications and audio and video signal processing. This has enabled us to increase the ADI content per PC among top- tier PC manufacturers to much higher levels. We are also experiencing strong demand for high-speed components used in digital cameras, DVD players and flat panel displays. "During the fourth quarter sales into the industrial market continued the broad-based recovery that began nine months ago. Demand increased from medical, industrial and ATE customers. We also continued to build momentum in industrial and commercial digital motor control applications with the largest motor manufacturers in the U.S., Europe and Japan. "We believe we are continuing to gain market share in most analog and DSP product categories," he noted. "Our converter market share has grown to 40%; this is especially significant because converters provide the critical link to DSPs in real-time signal processing applications. We believe that during the fourth quarter and for the full year our DSP business grew at more than twice the market rate. "We are planning for 2000 to be a very good year for Analog Devices," Mr. Fishman concluded. "We have the strongest new-product portfolio in our history, with a record $125 million, or approximately 30% of total fourth-quarter revenues, coming from products introduced within the preceding 18 months. Very strong fourth-quarter orders resulted in a 30% increase in our shippable backlog and a large percentage of the next quarter's revenues in backlog as we entered the first quarter. We are planning for first-quarter revenues in the range of $460 to $470 million. This level of revenues could generate fully diluted EPS of $0.43 to $0.45. For the full year, we anticipate continuing strong revenue growth and good operating leverage."