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CHICAGO — Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) today reported sales and earnings for the second quarter of 2012.
Sales for the second quarter of 2012 increased 10% sequentially to $175.9 million consistent with second quarter guidance and within $1 million of last year’s record second quarter despite over $4 million of unfavorable currency effects related primarily to the weaker euro.
Diluted earnings per share for the second quarter of 2012 were $1.07. This exceeded second quarter guidance but was below second quarter 2011 earnings of $1.11 per share due to unfavorable currency effects related to the weaker euro and stronger Philippine peso.
Sales and order trends by business unit were as follows:
- Electronics sales increased 16% sequentially but declined 9% year-over-year primarily due to swings in distributor inventory levels. The strong sequential growth resulted from a normalization of channel inventories after a weak first quarter, which was negatively impacted by inventory de-stocking. The year-over-year decline was primarily the result of a significant channel inventory build in the second quarter of 2011.
- Automotive sales increased 2% year-over-year due to strong commercial vehicle products sales, growth in automotive fuse sales in the U.S. and Asia and $1.3 million of sales from the recently-completed Accel acquisition. This was partially offset by $2 million of currency effects from the weaker euro in addition to weaker European demand.
- Electrical sales increased 25% year-over-year due to continued growth in protection relays and custom products reflecting strong demand from the mining sector.
- The electronics book-to-bill ratio for the second quarter of 2012 was 1.02.
- Cash provided by operating activities was $24.7 million for the second quarter of 2012. Capital expenditures for the second quarter of 2012 were $3.5 million.
- As previously announced, the company acquired Accel AB, a European-based automotive switch and sensor business on May 31, 2012.
“It was a solid quarter for us,” said Gordon Hunter, Chief Executive Officer. “The electronics business returned to more normal sales and margin levels; the electrical business continued its strong growth trajectory; and the automotive business was able to offset weakness in Europe with growth in the other geographies and strong Cole Hersee performance.”
Jenn–great story. In the perfect world, such incoming inspection would not be necessary if a company could trust the same tests were being done by suppliers. But as Spectral found out, that's not the case. It is helpful to hear these kinds of anecdotes becuas it also illustrates that a lot of the stuff being done further up the supply chain still doesn't seem to be working.
@Jennifer, good to hear about the initiatives taken by Spectral Response LLC to stop counterfeit parts. Am curious to know why can't all the companies start taking such initiatives to stop counterfieting ?
It is not possible to weed out all counterfeit parts with procedure outlines. Rather these type of procedure makes way to introduce counterfiet parts. The only way to ensure it is genuine part is that you purchase parts from manufacturere or exclusive/authorised distributor with full tracebility and read/record data, if required. Once you get it from grey market, it shows your willingenss to employ counterfiet parts in your product and latter justify it to be good parts. I have so many times experience these type of situation.
It looks like, to optimize the costs, acombination of two procedures may be adopted to weed out he possibility of counterfeit parts getting onto your assembly lines.
1. For parts purchased from the reputed suppliers , the self certfication of the vendor can be taken at its face value with only random sample testing. if the sample is found to be problemetic then the whole lot to be rejected and sent back to the supplier.
2. For gray market purchases , 100% inspection and testing to be done of each part before it is cleared for production.