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Micron 1Q shreds forecast
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December 22, 1999: 7:08 p.m. ET
Memory-chip maker beats First Call estimate by 34 cents
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Micron Technology Inc. trounced Wall Street’s earnings forecast after the closing bell Wednesday, posting fiscal first-quarter net income of $341 million, or $1.19 per share.
Analysts polled by First Call had expected the chip maker to earn 85 cents per share during the quarter ended Dec. 2.
Sales for quarter climbed to $1.6 billion from $794 million during last year’s fiscal first-quarter.
After slipping 1 to close at 80 in New York Stock Exchange trade Wednesday, Micron shares added 4 in after-hours activity.
Executives at Boise, Idaho-based Micron (MU) - which, through its majority-owned affiliate, Micron Electronics (MUEI), also sells personal computers - attributed the strong performance to increases in the average selling prices of the company’s semiconductor memory products.
"Strong demand for PCs has created a beneficial supply-and-demand situation for Micron, resulting in an increase in average selling prices,” Michael Sadler, the company’s vice president for sales and marketing, said in a conference call Wednesday evening.
The average selling price for the company’s core memory products averaged between $9.50 and $10 during the quarter, Sadler said.
The quarter marked the end of a losing streak for Micron, which had been dogged by a broad downturn in the electronics industry last years, which put a strain on prices, especially on commodity components such as memory.
During last year’s fiscal first-quarter, Micron posted sales of $793.6 million and a net loss of $46.2 million, or 19 cents per share.
Semiconductor sales for the first fiscal quarter of 2000 increased 63 percent to $1.3 billion from the fiscal fourth-quarter of 1999, Micron said.
The gross margin for Micron’s semiconductor operations was 58 percent in the first fiscal quarter of 2000 compared with 23 percent in the fourth fiscal quarter of 1999, the company said. Overall gross margin increased to 51 percent from 21 percent in the immediately preceding quarter.
Sadler also said that sales of memory products for devices other than PCs, including set-top boxes and digital cameras, also were up sharply during the quarter. Sales of synchronous random access memory (SDRAM) and Flash memory chips, which retain data even after the device they are installed in is powered down, increased two fold during the quarter.
On Monday, Micron Electronics also posted fiscal first-quarter profits that beat the Street, despite a drop in revenue. 
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Micron Technology
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