SAN FRANCISCO—European chip vendor STMicroelectronics NV Monday (April 23) reported a wider loss on lower revenue for the first quarter, but the firm's CEO said the company believes billings bottomed out during the quarter.
ST (Geneva) reported first quarter sales of $2.02 billion, down 8 percent from the previous quarter and down 21 percent compared to the first quarter of 2011. The company reported a net loss of $176 million for the quarter, compared to a net loss of $11 million in the previous quarter and a net income of $170 million in the year-ago quarter.
ST's sales for the quarter came in at about the midpoint of the company's guidance for the quarter, but below consensus analysts' expectations of $2.04 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
ST President and CEO Carlo Bozotti said in a statement that ST's wholly owned businesses posted a sequential decrease of 3 percent in the first quarter, better than the historically seasonal average in the first quarter. But Bozotti said that
a wider loss on declining sales at ST-Ericsson, ST's mobile phone chip joint venture with Ericsson AB, weighed down ST's first quarter results yet again.
Earlier Monday, ST-Ericsson announced it would
cut about 1,700 jobs to lower its breakeven point and transfer its standalone application processor activities to ST.
"While there are still macro-economic uncertainties, we believe billings have bottomed in the first quarter," Bozotti said. "Bookings have improved across the board during the course of the first quarter."
ST said it expects sales to grow 4.5 percent to 10.5 percent sequentially to between $2.11 billion and $2.23 billion.