Posted by : Anonymous on Mar 08, 2004 - 11:32 PM General

Despite narrowing its first-quarter revenue estimate because of a slight oversupply in Asia, Intel executives say that the global corporate technology spending continues to improve, albeit gradually.
In a scheduled update of its business, Intel, the world's largest maker of semiconductors, said it expected revenue in the first quarter to be $8 billion to $8.2 billion, compared with its January forecast of $7.9 billion to $8.5 billion. The company does not forecast earnings.

The first quarter is typically Intel's weakest as demand for computers and electronics softens after the holiday rush. On Monday, the Semiconductor Industry Association, the chip industry trade group, said worldwide sales of semiconductors dropped 2.4 percent in January, compared with those in December, but rose 27 percent compared with those in the month a year earlier.

We had some inventory build in Asia and Japan in the first quarter, which we think has been resolved by now, but was out there, said Intel's chief financial officer, Andy Bryant.

He added that the company was encouraged by what appeared to be a gradual improvement in technology spending as companies continued to replace aging equipment. We don't think it's an overnight flip of switch, but a build over the year, Bryant he said.

Analysts have forecast first-quarter earnings for Intel of 28 cents a share and revenue of $8.27 billion, according to Thomson First Call. In the first quarter of 2003, it had earnings of 14 cents a share and revenue of $6.75 billion

Intel's estimate of its gross margin, a measure of the percentage of sales remaining after production costs, stayed roughly the same as the company's January forecast: about 60 percent, plus or minus two percentage points.

The company recently began volume shipments of Prescott, a higher performing version of its Pentium 4 microprocessor, and announced it would add 64-bit extensions to its Pentium and Xeon processors to compete better with the Opteron processor from AMD.

International Herald Tribune
By Laurie J. Flynn The New York Times
Monday, March 08, 2004

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