Texas Instruments (TI) said its third-quarter earnings and revenue would be worse than already low expectations because concern about an economic slowdown is stifling demand for products that use its chips.
The company, which warned in July of a modest quarter, said on Thursday that demand had weakened further across “a wide range of products, markets and customers.”
“Macroeconomic weakness is resulting in lower demand from consumers and enterprises,” TI’s head of investor relations Ron Slaymaker told analysts on a conference call.
He ruled out inventory adjustments as the reason for slowing demand.
Slaymaker noted that the firm is cutting expenses, including such as variable compensation to stop profits from falling as quickly as sales. However, because the shortfall is economy related, the executive said he had no way of knowing when demand would improve.
“The only solace to take away from this is that it’s not TI specific,” said Williams Financial analyst Cody Acree who cited warnings about weak demand across the semiconductor industry.
Investors also took the news in their stride because rivals such as Fairchild Semiconductor had already signaled a weak market by cutting its revenue guidance earlier this week.
Also on Thursday, another technology company, Corning Inc, cut its forecast for glass demand, citing sluggish television sales.
Acree said he was encouraged by Slaymaker’s mention on the call that TI’s applications chips for cellphones were selling well despite the overall weak demand and competition from rivals such as Qualcomm Inc and Nvidia Corp.
Texas Instruments, which makes chips for products ranging from cellphones to cars, now expects quarterly earnings per share of between US$0.56 and US$0.60, compared with its previous expectation of between US$0.55 and US$0.65.
The company forecast revenue of between US$3.23 billion and US$3.27 billion compared with its earlier target of US$3.4 billion to US$3.7 billion.
The new forecasts missed Wall Street expectations for earnings of US$0.59 per share on revenue of US$3.5 billion, Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained