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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (13057)	1/15/2004 11:55:42 PM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95391

SEZ Q4 Orders Explode 80% Online Staff -- Electronic News, 1/15/2004 The Austrian equipment seller concludes 2003 with its backlog up 73 percent year-over-year, driven by 300mm orders. Austrian process tool vendor SEZ Group saw Q4 orders leap 80 percent sequentially in Q4 of last year to CHF $71 million (88 million Swiss francs). Demand from 300mm projects, both from foundries in the Asia-Pacific region and Japanese microchip manufacturers, according to the Villach, Austria-based maker of single-wafer clean tools. Overall in 2003, the company received new orders worth CHF $162.8 million (201.6 million CHF) and improved its corresponding book-to-bill-ratio from 0.96 to 1.19. SEZ had an Order backlog of $57 million (70.6 million CHF) at the end of 2003, a year-over-year increase of 73 percent. In Q4, preliminary sales improved by almost 60 percent compared to the previous quarter, reaching $50 million (62 million CHF), SEZ said. As a result, SEZ clearly exceeded the upper limit of its sales forecast for 2003, with preliminary sales of $137.3 million (170 million CHF). "The most important trend in wet processing we see emerging is that single-wafer processing is overtaking batch processing," SEZ VP Kurt Lackenbucher said in a statement. Based on sales in the past three quarters and the improving market for process equipment, SEZ expects to achieve net sales of at least $193.2 million (240 million CHF) in the fiscal year 2004.