NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Applied Materials, the leading maker of equipment and tools for semiconductor companies, reported a net loss in its fiscal third quarter due to restructuring charges and layoffs. But excluding the charges, the company reported earnings that were slightly better than expected.

Applied Materials reported a net loss of $37 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with a profit of $115 million, or 7 cents a share, a year ago. After excluding the charges, AMAT earned $78 million, or 5 cents a share, ahead of the First Call consensus estimate of 4 cents a share.

Revenue came in at $1.1 billion, in line with Wall Street estimates. Most important, new orders for the quarter were $1.05 billion, a 9 percent increase from its fiscal second quarter. The company told Wall Street in May that it was expecting new orders for the third quarter to be unchanged from the second quarter total of $971 million. New order activity is a key metric in the chip equipment sector since it is an indicator of future revenue.

Shares of Applied Materials (AMAT: Research, Estimates) gained 11 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $18.45 in regular trading on the Nasdaq Tuesday but the stock dipped nearly 2 percent in after-hours trading to $18.10, according to Island ECN.

During the company's conference call Tuesday afternoon, AMAT Chief Financial Officer Joseph Bronson said he expects new orders for the company's fourth quarter, ending in October, to be about 10 percent higher than the third quarter.

But that met the low end of expectations for several analysts and fund managers. Alex Vallecillo, senior portfolio manager with National City Investment Management, which owns shares of AMAT, said that the company probably needed to give guidance of better than 10 percent growth in new orders to meet revenue estimates for the next few quarters.

To that end, Bronson said that fourth-quarter sales would likely be flat, while analysts were expecting revenue to increase to $1.2 billion. In addition, Bronson said earnings would probably be between 4 cents and 5 cents a share, lower than the 6 cents a share that Wall Street was expecting.

This news caused the shares of AMAT rivals KLA-Tencor (KLAC: Research, Estimates), Novellus Systems (NVLS: Research, Estimates), and Lam Research (LRCX: Research, Estimates) to dip slightly after hours as well.

"Applied Materials is the bellwether. The company's results give a good indication of what we can expect for the rest of the industry," said Sunil Reddy, manager of the Fifth Third Technology fund, which owns shares of Applied Materials.

Although demand for chip equipment seems to be improving slightly, the industry remains mired in a nearly three-year slump. AMAT reported big declines in sales and new orders from a year ago. Revenue in the same quarter last year was $1.5 billion and new orders came in at $1.8 billion.

In a written statement, new AMAT CEO Mike Splinter said that an improving global economy was leading some companies to invest gradually in new technology but that overall, "semiconductor manufacturers continue to be cautious in their capital spending."

Several large U.S.-based semiconductor companies, namely Intel, Texas Instruments and Motorola, reported in their second-quarter results last month that they did not plan on spending much more on new equipment in the near future.

To that end, AMAT saw most of its strength in Asia, with 70 percent of its new orders coming from Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China, and southeast Asia.