Record revenues and 6-inch production at RFMD
Revenue exceeded the company s most recent estimates of $118 million, primarily as a result of increased demand in the final week of the quarter.
RFMD is fully booked for the December 2002 quarter and currently anticipates revenue of approximately $128 million to $132 million and earnings per share of approximately $0.04 to $0.05.
David Norbury, CEO of RF Micro Devices, said, "Our growth was driven primarily by market share gains and diversification efforts. The introduction of new, highly integrated PA modules accelerated our growth in GSM and CDMA PAs and helped to increase our sales to OEMs, ODMs and contract manufacturers.
Sales to RFMD s largest customer, Nokia, grew in dollar value, but fell to less than 50% of RFMD s total revenue.
WLAN and Resonext
WLAN revenues grew 35.4% from the previous quarter, and RFMD estimates that its WLAN components are currently included in more than 20% of all WLAN devices. The company has a long-term goal to be the leading supplier of WLAN chipsets.
RFMD also announced the acquisition of Resonext Communications, Inc., a privately held company providing complete, highly integrated CMOS WLAN solutions for 802.11a and multi-band (802.11a/b/g) platforms.
RFMD will issue $133 million in stock to acquire Resonext – the number of shares will depend on RFMD s stock price.
RFMD plans to utilize the technology and engineering resources acquired to design multi-mode products integrating WLAN and handset functionality. Manufacturers of handheld devices seek lower power consumption and reduced bill-of-material (BOM) costs, both of which are enabled by the higher levels of integration of Resonext s CMOS product offerings.
6-inch HBT production
"In the March quarter, we plan to begin 6-inch GaAs HBT production, which we expect will further reduce our cost structure," said Dean Priddy, CFO and VP of administration. "Additionally, our technical team has identified techniques we believe will improve our test yields by several points.
"On the design side, we continue to push for higher levels of integration and are developing innovative low-cost packages that have IP protection," continued Priddy. "Finally, the cost advantage we ve negotiated through our Jazz relationship reduces our cost of silicon components and will improve overall profitability as we transition manufacturing to Jazz."
Priddy says that RFMD will also continue to invest in multiple growing markets, including handset transceivers, wireless LAN, Bluetooth, GPS, and advanced technologies like gallium nitride.
