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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rhering who wrote (7788)	10/28/2003 10:28:10 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

UPDATE - Advantest H1 returns to profit, ups 03/04 forecast Tuesday October 28, 6:06 am ET By Risa Maeda (Recasts lead, adds president comment, detail) TOKYO, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Advantest Corp (Tokyo:6857.T - News), Japan's biggest maker of microchip testing devices, returned to profit for the first half of the business year and raised its full-year forecast based on a recovery in capital spending by chip makers. The company said on Tuesday its group net profit, reported under U.S. accounting rules, came in at 2.45 billion yen ($22.6 million) for the six months to September 30 as revenues rose 51.5 percent from a year earlier to 62.29 billion yen. The maker of testers for DRAM (dymamic random access memory) and flash memory posted a net loss of 3.77 billion yen in the same period a year earlier on sales of 41.11 billion yen. Advantest, which has run at a loss for the past two years, forecast a net profit of nine billion yen for the year to March on revenues of 145 billion. That beat its previous forecast, issued on September 26, when it more than doubled its group net profit projection for 2003/04 to 7.5 billion yen on revenues of 140 billion. While other makers of chip equipment such as Tokyo Electron Ltd (Tokyo:8035.T - News) have also benefited from an upturn in the market, Advantest has also gained from restructuring and job cuts. The company also raised its full-year target for orders to 160 billion yen after first half orders reached 80.2 billion. The downtrend in orders hit a bottom in 2001/02. President Toshio Maruyama told a news conference the orders estimate was conservative. "Customer demand is quite strong now," he said. "We should admit the second half target is very conservative," he added. "Both sales and orders have been buoyant, both at home and abroad." BRIGHT OUTLOOK About 90 percent of Advantest's sales are from chip-testing equipment. The rest of its electronics measuring business stayed in the red in the half due to slump in the communications equipment market, especially in the optical fibre sector. Maruyama said, however, that this business would hopefully catch up with the rest in the second half of 2004. Data released by a global semiconductor trade group on Tuesday underlined Advantest's brighter outlook. The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) group raised its year-on-year growth estimate for the value of chips sold worldwide in calendar 2003 to 14.2 percent from 11.5 percent, and said it expected even stronger growth of 19.4 percent in 2004. In an interview with Reuters earlier this month, Maruyama said a recovery in capital investment by chip makers was likely to spur a steady stream of orders well into next year. He said the success of Japanese chip maker Elpida Memory in raising capital from over 30 investors as well as top chip manufacturer Intel Corp's (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) $450 million investment in Micron Technology (NYSE:MU - News) had led to a pickup in orders. Advantest's machines are used in the semiconductor manufacturing process to confirm that a chip is functioning correctly. Analysts said expected growth in industry-wide investment in DDR chips was seen as a key driver for Advantest's earnings heading into next business year. Micron, a designer and maker of memory chips, has said it plans to spend more on test equipment as it uses part of Intel's money to increase production of its high-performance double data rate, or DDR2, dynamic random-access memory chips. Also, a move by manufacturers to upgrade to larger 300 mm (12-inch) silicon wafers -- which yield more microchips and are more cost-effective than the conventional 200 mm variety -- is expected to lead to more orders for Advantest. Advantest's announcement came just after the close of share trading. Its shares ended the day up 4.4 percent at 7,830 yen, compared with a 1.19 percent rise in the TOPIX index (^TOPX - News). The shares are up 47 percent to date this calendar year, outperforming a 25 percent rise in the electric machinery sector subindex (^IELEC.T - News).

To: rhering who wrote (7788)	10/28/2003 12:04:22 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Kind of stating the obvious, aren't they? 11:09AM TSMC report has positive implications for AMAT, CYMI, VSEA, AMSL -- Moors & Cabot (TSM) 11.38 +0.94: Moors and Cabot provides intraday comments on TSMC results, and highlights the following items: 1) Total utilization exceeded estimates at 98%, up from 88% last quarter, and firm's forecast of 90%; 2) Co intimated that 2004 capex would be "significantly higher" than 2003; and 3) Co also noted 2004's capex could be approximately 25% of total revs, higher than the 20% of revs that it has been benchmarking for the past two years. Firm says this report may impact its semiconductor universe in the following ways: AMAT remains the most highly leveraged co/stock to positive implications from TSMC, and feels that there may be upside to revenues and particularly earnings for AMAT's FY04 ests and recommends purchasing the stock off this news. Firm also believes that CYMI and VSEA remain highly leveraged to positive TSMC capex trends. ASML is also mentioned given its role as the leading litho supplier to TSMC, and CYMI was also mentioned as a big beneficiary as well.