LED business drives Cree to record revenue levels
Net income for the December 2002 quarter increased to $8,996,000, or $0.12 per diluted share, compared to a loss of over $17 million in the year-ago period.
"We are extremely pleased with our results in terms of revenue and earnings," said Chuck Swoboda, Cree s president and CEO. "During the quarter our ability to maximize capacity through productivity improvements and a more favorable product mix provided us with the leverage to grow the business faster than expected and exit the quarter with the highest quarterly revenue in the company s history."
Growth was driven by continued demand for LEDs from handset and automotive applications. Cree s LED revenue increased 18% over the September quarter, while unit shipments increased 15% sequentially and 89% over the year-ago period. Quarterly shipment volumes were at the highest level in the company s history.
Average selling prices (ASPs) of LED products increased 3% sequentially, due to an increase in share of MegaBright products to over 40% of Cree s total output. Average production costs for LEDs decreased 8% during the quarter, benefiting from productivity gains as the company s production capacity was ramped up.
Cree wrote off $1.4 million in fixed assets associated with a novel epitaxy equipment project that was discontinued. SG&A costs dropped $1.4 million due to reduced legal fees associated with the settlement of Cree s litigation with Nichia.
According to Swoboda, Cree is targeting revenue in the $59-60 million range for the March 2003 quarter, based on continued growth of LED sales. "We plan to grow the LED business by more than 5% sequentially, once again reaching record levels," he said. "We already have more than 80% of our revenue target booked for the quarter."
Swoboda also says that Cree continues to make lifetime improvements to its InGaN-on-SiC lasers, and plans to launch a 30 mW laser product in the first half of calendar 2003.
Next-generation SiC MESFETs will be released in the next several months, while first customer samples of GaN devices should be available by the end of calendar 2003. The company recently demonstrated a 10 kV SiC MOSFET which is more than 100 times smaller than an equivalent Si device, although commercial introduction is more than a year away.
