TriQuint trebles 3G sales in three months
The latest third-generation handset platform from TriQuint, billed as the smallest on the market, has driven up quarter-over-quarter sales into this sector by 195 percent.
The Tritium PAs are one of two recently-introduced platforms that propelled the company s overall quarterly revenue up 47 percent to a record $186.3 million.
These GaAs chips brought 3G sales to a total of $62.5 million in the period ended September as they rolled out of TriQuint s Hillsboro, Oregon, fabs alongside its latest Wi-Fi offering.
In June CEO Ralph Quinsey estimated his company held a 20 percent market share in wireless local-area-network (WLAN) PAs, since when this area s takings have grown another 33 percent.
After bringing in $19.3 million in the three months to September, WLAN at TriQuint has grown by 174 percent, year-over-year.
Combined with steady growth in its military revenues these factors increased the company s profits to $11.8 million, up from $3.4 million sequentially.
However, Quinsey warns that this positive outcome is partly due to customers “filling an empty pipeline” this quarter, building inventory of its latest products for their future needs.
Consequently he predicts a fall in revenues in the final period of 2008 "“ normally the strongest for PA makers - to a maximum of $175 million.
“Typically you would find, this time of year, the whole world is bulking up, anticipating a selling season,” Quinsey said.
“There is so much uncertainty right now, there has been a slowing in orders from some of our customers,” he added, “but we continue to see pull-ins from others.”
A key factor in TriQuint s results blow-out has been inclusion in the iPhone 3G, which shifted 6.9 million units for Apple this quarter. With Quinsey saying that GaAs content in an individual 3G handset is now above $6, the handset s popularity will have made a healthy impact on the TriQuint s bottom line.
In fact the three months to September saw Foxconn, the company that makes iPhones for Apple, become the only customer responsible for more than 10 percent of TriQuint s overall revenues. As a leading contract manufacturer Foxconn also produces motherboards for Intel, computers for Dell and handsets for Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson.
