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

To: Beltropolis Boy who wrote (28364)	2/17/1999 11:34:00 AM
From: Jeffrey D	Respond to of 70976

Thank you Chris. And this from Sue Billat. Poor Tokyo Electron. Tough to compete against the AMAT gorilla. jeff PR Newswire, Wednesday, February 17, 1999 at 11:06 SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by BancBoston Robertson Stephens, a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers, CRD number 41271: BancBoston Robertson Stephens senior semiconductor equipment analyst Sue Billat today reiterated her Strong Buy rating and raised estimates on Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT). Applied Materials, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is the world's leading supplier of semiconductor wafer fab equipment, with a strong position in the PVD, CVD, RTP, etch and ion implant markets. "We are reiterating our Strong Buy rating on Applied and raising our fiscal 1999 earnings per share estimate to $1.05, from $0.55, and our 2000 estimate to $2.15, from $2.00," said Billat. "The company's order outlook is sharply improved, as orders surged by 50 percent, showing strength across all geographic regions and across all IC types. We are encouraged by the growing number of capacity buys, in addition to ongoing technology buys, as chipmakers are increasingly contending with capacity constraints." "The company reported first quarter fiscal 1999 earnings per share of $0.11 and orders of $1.029 billion, dramatically beating our expectations of $0.06 and $850-$950 million, respectively, with an impressive book-to-bill of 1.39, up from 1.02 in fourth quarter 1998," said Billat. "In our view, Applied is adept at taking advantage of up, as well as down, cycles in the industry, and we believe that it has successfully executed this powerful strategy during the recent downturn to gain market share, particularly at the expense of Tokyo Electron," said Billat. "In addition, Applied has once again raised the bar with its streamlined manufacturing operations. We believe these streamlined operations will enable significant leverage to margin improvements during the recovery and thus will extend the company's lead as the number-one semiconductor equipment supplier." >>