Chipmakers National Semiconductor and Texas Instruments Inc (TI) on Thursday issued quarterly financial targets that stoked investors’ worries about a sluggish economy.
Both companies cited weak demand for personal computers and other devices that use microchips. National Semiconductor said consumers were not spending as much as expected.
“We’d all like to believe that consumer spending is onward and upward, but I don’t think it is,” National Semiconductor CEO Donald Macleod said.
National Semiconductor said sales in the current quarter could fall as much as 5 percent from the three months ended in August, as the companies it supplies reduce inventories. While TI stuck with the midpoint of its revenue and earnings outlook range, this was not enough to cheer up investors.
Santa Clara, California-based National Semiconductor’s guidance follows industry giant Intel Corp’s warning last month August that weaker-than-expected consumer demand for personal computers would limit its sales growth.
“You can see what’s happening here between Intel, National Semiconductor and TI’s report: Demand has peaked and is starting to head down,” Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder said.
As US unemployment remains high, investors have been impatient with sluggish economic growth and some fear a possible new downturn.
While TI kept the midpoint in its guidance range for revenue and earnings per share in line with analysts’ expectations, its shares fell 1.4 percent because some investors were disappointed it did not raise its targets.
Ron Slaymaker, TI’s head of investor relations, said that on top of weakening demand for personal computers and related storage products, consumers also appeared to be buying fewer televisions than expected this quarter.
Slaymaker attributed some of the weakness to a lack of consumer interest in TVs boasting 3D technology and the fact that the World Cup soccer tournament had boosted TV sales in the previous quarter.
He said TI was still seeing strong demand from industrial and wireless chip customers in the quarter.
While TI was bullish on smartphones, National Semiconductor said it expected the weak economy to limit sales growth for its chips that handle backlighting and camera flashes on smartphones, Macleod said.
Snyder said that TI’s guidance followed several quarters in which the company said it had trouble keeping up with customer orders because demand was so strong.
“In this environment when you’re not raising guidance and other folks are indicating softness it’s not going to be taken well,” Snyder said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS