By Kristin Jones
Silicon Motion Technology Corp.'s (SIMO) fourth-quarter profit
fell 35% as the semiconductor-products maker said its sales of LTE
transceivers decreased.
The company's American depositary shares fell 11% to $13.05 as
results fell short of Street expectations, and Silicon Motion gave
a downbeat revenue outlook for the current quarter. Through the
close Monday, the ADS were down 5.1% over the past six months.
For the first quarter, the company expects revenue to fall 15%
to 25% from the fourth quarter, indicating a range of $53 million
to $60 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters recently
projected revenue of $68 million.
Silicon Motion makes controllers used in mobile-storage media
like flash-memory cards and flash drives, as well as multimedia
systems on chips used in MP3 players and cameras. The company's
income has mostly grown over the past year, thanks to double-digit
revenue growth.
Chief Executive Wallace Kou said the latest quarter's revenue
was negatively impacted as the third quarter saw accelerated sales
of LTE transceivers for Samsung Electronics Co. (SSNHY, 005930.SE)
smartphones.
Mr. Kou said LTE sales will decrease sequentially in the first
quarter, "as Samsung's flagship smartphone and tablet models are in
transition."
He added that a large customer is "rebalancing its card and
wafer sales, and this will negatively affect sales temporarily in
the first quarter."
Sales are expected to pick up in the second quarter, Mr. Kou
said.
For the fourth quarter, the company reported a profit of $7.9
million, or 23 cents an ADS, down from $12.2 million, or 37 cents
an ADS, a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation and
other items, per-ADS earnings fell to 36 cents from 47 cents.
Revenue rose 5.1% to $70.6 million.
Analysts were expecting per-ADS earnings of 39 cents on revenue
of $72.5 million.
Gross margin narrowed to 43% from 49.7%.
Looking ahead to the full year, Silicon Motion expects revenue
to grow 10% to 20% from 2012, indicating $309.5 million to $337.6
million and bracketing consensus estimates of $319 million.
Write to Kristin Jones at kristin.jones@dowjones.com
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