Friday, April 03, 2009

Aptina's Sales, Margins Down

Barron's: Aptina's image sensor sales were down 54% for the quarter ended on March, 5, 2009, due to a sharp drop in units relating to weakening consumer demand. Gross margins of imaging products fell to 2%, from 29% in the previous quarter.

Seeking Alpha's Earnings Call transcript adds little information on that:

Ronald C. Foster, CFO:

Imaging revenues were down 53% from quarter-to-quarter, primarily due to weakness in the mobile phone market.
...
Imaging gross margins were down as we experienced a slow down in unit sales and production, driving up per unit costs. Imaging gross margins did, however, remain positive at 2.8%.

2 comments:

  1. LOL. Leave it to a DRAM maker to tout positive gross margins of 2.8%. That's what happens when you start over absorbing overhead costs. If Aptina really lost the Apple business, it can only get worse.

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  2. To put Aptina's fall into proportion, look at Omnivision's result from a month ago:

    http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2009/02/omnivision-reports-quarterly-earnings.html

    From Omnivision's quarterly report:

    "Revenues for the three months ended January 31, 2009 decreased by 64.4% to approximately $80.0 million from $224.9 million for the three months ended January 31, 2008. The decrease in revenues was due to a decline in unit sales of our image-sensor products across all product categories, combined with a decline in our ASPs, partially offset by a more favorable product mix. Due to the global economic downturn, we expect our revenues for the three months ending April 30, 2009 to be lower than the revenues for the three months ended January 31, 2009. Visibility beyond April 30, 2009 continues to be limited."

    Last quarter was a disaster not only for Aptina or Omnivision, but for whole the industry. My hopes are for the next quarter to be better.

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