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

To: Orhan Birol who wrote (19482)	5/15/1998 8:27:00 AM
From: Henry Eichorszt	Respond to of 70976

Applied Materials sees growth in 1999 Reuters Story - May 15, 1998 02:40 %SG %US %ELC %ELI %KR %MY %TH AMAT V%REUTER P%RTR ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Josephine Ng SINGAPORE, May 15 (Reuters) - Applied Materials Inc, the world's largest maker of semiconductor equipment, is looking to 1999 for its business to pick up after a flat 1998, senior officials said on Friday. For the financial year ending October 1998, Applied expected its revenue to be steady at around $4.3-4.5 billion, David Wang, senior vice president of the company said. "Overall, it (revenue) is flat as capital spending has decreased by 12 percent compared to 1997," he said. Wang was speaking at the opening of the company's new training centre in Singapore. "Long term, the growth is still very positive," he said. "We believe in the next eight to 12 months, something will happen. Southeast Asian economies will become more stable." Wang said the demand for Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips will increase because the capacity increase in the current year was not enough to meet demand in 1999 and 2000. Based on industry estimates, the semiconductor industry should improve next year, where capital expenditure is seen rising 10 percent and revenue growing 12.9 percent over 1998. Semiconductor sales should edge up five percent in 1998 to US$150 billion and capital expediture was projected to fall to $34.3 billion from $39 billion, Wang said. "In 2000, 25 percent of the cost of electronic appliances will come from silicon chips. The only bottleneck is (lack of) well-educated and trained technical resources," he said. Wang also said despite the region's economic problems, Southeast Asian revenues should rise to about $180 million this fiscal year, up from $140 million previously. Whether the company would be able to chalk up any growth in profit this year depended on how well it managed its costs, Wang said. According to analysts, Applied had cut its headcount by 4.9 percent to 15,500 in the last three months. Wang said he did not see any more layoffs as the company needed to preseve its "strength for the upturn." It was reducing costs with shutdowns in the U.S. on alternate Fridays, a scaleback in component manufacturing in South Korea, voluntary leave and less travelling for executives, he said. Looking ahead, Ng Khim Han, the company's Southeast Asia managing director said Asia, including Japan, could account for 65 percent of Applied's shipments in three years' time. The region now took up 55 percent of its shipments, he said. Excluding Japan, Asia accounted for 35 percent of shipments, most of which went to Taiwan, he said. Ng said Southeast Asia could potentially rake in $400 million sales for Applied but it depended on how quickly economies like Malaysia and Thailand recovered. Most of the company's shipments to Southeast Asia are taken by Singapore currently, he said. -- Singapore Newsroom (65) 870-3080; Fax (65) 776-8112 -- Email: singapore.newsroomreuters.com Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.