Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (30443)	5/20/1999 5:34:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Katherine, I believe that AMAT peaked at about $1.5B billings / qtr during the .25µ cycle. It's now at a little over $1B. I suspect that it could handle BtB > 1.2 for some time to come without being forced to build backlog excessively. And a similar story is true for most of the other players. What might hurt them is their ability to rehire and retrain the manufacturing staff. IMHO, Ian.

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (30443)	5/20/1999 5:44:00 PM
From: Duker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

It's a little surprising for AMAT's to be less than the industry's, but that could just mean that they're able to ramp shipments up faster ... Yeah, I would say that +51% sequential revenue growth would help to explain most of it. --Duker

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (30443)	5/20/1999 5:52:00 PM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 70976

Katherine and Sun Tzu, Katherine said >>I doubt that anyone is production-limited at 1.3ish, but that could start to be a problem were the (industry) BtB to climb above 1.4 or stay at 1.3 for several months.< That hasn't happened for the industry since 1991 [data below]. Has it happened for an individual company? Gottfried SEMI btb 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 JAN 1.23 1.09 1.12 1.17 1.32 1.28 1.11 0.93 1.12 FEB 1.12 1.20 1.15 1.13 1.41 1.36 1.07 0.90 1.22 MAR 0.91 1.13 1.12 1.07 1.30 1.15 1.15 0.82 1.33 APR 0.92 1.02 1.18 1.05 1.23 1.00 1.10 0.78 1.28 MAY 0.93 0.93 1.20 1.02 1.11 0.87 1.09 0.81 JUN 0.96 0.90 1.22 1.16 1.18 0.87 1.07 0.74 JUL 0.93 0.92 1.19 1.20 1.08 0.76 1.12 0.65 AUG 0.92 0.94 1.14 1.21 1.05 0.71 1.07 0.57 SEP 0.94 0.98 1.02 1.03 1.02 0.70 1.05 0.57 OCT 1.01 1.01 1.03 1.12 1.07 0.78 1.02 0.75 NOV 0.96 1.03 1.05 1.19 1.06 0.90 1.00 0.84 DEC 0.98 1.08 1.19 1.29 1.15 1.02 0.99 0.97

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (30443)	5/20/1999 6:02:00 PM
From: David Aegis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

April BtB was STRONG. Here's why: March BtB of 1.33 is based on an upwardly revised number. Nonetheless, the dollar amount of April bookings was still 6.3% higher than the upwardly revised March figure, and about 13% higher than the initial March bookings figure (which my records show was reported as $1.151 billion, and subsequently revised upwards to $1.228 billion). IMO, it's not the ratio of Book to Bill that really matters, anyway, it's the dollar amount of bookings. Here's the SEMI link in case anyone missed it: semi.org --David