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Linear Technology Corp. said fiscal 2014 first quarter net income and revenue rose at a single-digit pace but warns results in the ongoing quarter may be negatively impacted by several factors, including “the current budgeting stalemate at the Federal Government level.”
The high-performance linear semiconductor vendor’s profit rose to $107.9 million, or 45 cents per share, in the three months ended Sept. 29, from $105.2 million, in the year-ago quarter. Strong contribution from the automotive market helped to boost sales in the just-ended quarter to $340.4 million, up 2 percent, from $335.2 million in the comparable quarter of 2012 and $327.3 million in the June quarter. Analysts were expecting Linear Technology to report sales of approximately $339 million and net income of 46 cents per share.
Linear Technology said it expects results for the December quarter to be seasonally weak due to expected sluggishness in the automotive market during the period. Sales for the fiscal second quarter are forecast to be “flat to down 4% from the first quarter of fiscal 2014,” according to CEO Lothar Maier.
Lothar Maier, CEO, Linear Technology
“Our second fiscal quarter has been challenging over the past three years partially due to the December quarter being a historically slow quarter for the automotive and industrial end-markets,” Maier said, in a statement. “Our book-to-bill ratio for the first quarter was slightly positive, however, bookings normally weaken the last month of the December quarter due to the holiday period.”
