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

To: Gottfried who wrote (24690)	9/28/1998 5:37:00 PM
From: Duker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

REPORTS EARNINGS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998 Consolidated Financial Summary Boise, Idaho, September 28, 1998 – Micron Technology, Inc., today reported a net loss for its fiscal 1998 operations of $234 million, or $1.10 per share - diluted, on net sales of $3.0 billion. Net income for fiscal 1997 was $332 million, or $1.55 per share - diluted, on net sales of $3.5 billion. Results of operations for fiscal 1998 included a $38 million after-tax gain ($0.18 per share - diluted) on the sale in the second fiscal quarter of substantially all of the Company's holdings in its contract manufacturing subsidiary. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 1998, the Company's net sales were $692 million and the net loss was $89 million, or $0.42 per share - diluted, compared to net sales of $610 million and net loss of $106 million ($0.50 per share - diluted) for the third quarter of fiscal 1998. The losses incurred in fiscal 1998 were primarily due to severe declines in per megabit selling prices on the Company's semiconductor memory products. Per megabit prices declined approximately 60 percent in fiscal 1998 following a 75 percent decline in fiscal 1997 and a 45 percent decline in fiscal 1996. The Company's memory output was significantly higher in fiscal 1998 than in 1997, principally as a result of manufacturing efficiencies and aggressive transitions from .30 to .21 line-width devices. Late in fiscal 1998 the Company transitioned to 64 Meg SDRAM products of which over 80 percent are PC-100 compliant. The Company's semiconductor operations gross margin declined to 5 percent for fiscal 1998 as compared to 39 percent for fiscal 1997. The gross margin decline during the year was a result of average selling prices decreasing at a rate faster than the Company was able to decrease manufacturing costs. Net sales of PC systems (exclusive of semiconductor memory) increased as a percentage of the Company's sales from 42 percent in fiscal 1997 to 48 percent in fiscal 1998. Unit sales of PC systems increased 5 percent in fiscal 1998 as compared to fiscal 1997 while average selling prices for PC systems declined 11 percent as a result of intense competition in the Company's desktop and notebook markets. The Company's semiconductor memory operations increased megabits sold in the fourth fiscal quarter by 63 percent over the third fiscal quarter in part due to a 39 percent decrease in finished goods inventory. Semiconductor memory operations had a negative gross margin of 10 percent in the fourth fiscal quarter compared to a negative 20 percent in the third fiscal quarter. The Company's PC operations had a slight improvement in gross margin in the fourth fiscal quarter in spite of declines in average selling prices. Fourth quarter PC unit sales were 9 percent higher than the third quarter of fiscal 1998. Steve Appleton, Chairman, CEO and President commented on the fiscal 1998 results: ''While this has been a challenging year, we have positioned Micron as the lowest cost DRAM manufacturer and have a significant edge on our competition. We are pleased with the progress our team has made ramping our .21 technology and their efforts in ensuring our current manufacturing operations are capable of .18 technology production. Although we cannot yet determine if recent stability in the market will be sustained, current market conditions are encouraging. We are pleased that both the semiconductor team and PC team continue to make strong improvements in operations." On June 18, 1998, the Company announced the intent to acquire the semiconductor memory operations of Texas Instruments, Incorporated. This transaction is expected to close in the next few weeks. Additional information regarding the TI acquisition will be provided upon the close of the transaction. Micron Technology, Inc., and its subsidiaries manufacture and market DRAMs, very fast SRAMs, Flash, other semiconductor components, memory modules, graphics accelerators, personal computer systems, and radio frequency identification (RFID) products. Micron's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol MU. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc., visit its web site at www.micron.com.