RF Micro's Tight Belt

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After a couple of rough quarters, the restructuring to which wireless components maker RF Micro (Nasdaq: RFMD) committed just under three months ago is already reversing downtrends and paying off for the company. With nice sequential growth in revenue and better-than-expected earnings, investors are piling back into the stock, causing shares to rise by as much as 15% this morning.

The bottom line was actually deep in the red, mostly thanks to $26.6 million in restructuring charges aimed to slim the business down, taking a non-GAAP gain of $7.9 million and turning it into a $24.1 million GAAP loss. Other charges -- including the amortization of intangibles, gourmet chocolate truffles, and stock options expenses -- added millions to the loss as well. OK, chocolate truffles weren't actually part of the GAAP reconciliation, but I'm sure some companies out there spend heavily on the sweet confectionary.

RF Micro also saw solid top-line growth, as revenues jumped 9% sequentially and 13.7% year over year to $240.5 million. The company noted that sales of cellular front-end units grew at three times the market rate and its multimarket products group saw better than 20% sequential revenue growth. The company pointed to the revenue gains as a sign that it is holding up well against competitors like Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM) and taking market share.

Outside of the major restructuring, the other strategic effort to diversify revenue streams appears to be taking hold as well. RF Micro's acquisition of Sirenza has helped add content from customers such as Flextronics (Nasdaq: FLEX) and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) to help augment business with core cellular players like Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK).

The company also released more "good" news: Secret party-crasher Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is no longer likely to be a "headwind to our financial performance." The bad news? Revenue from the handset maker dropped dramatically, from roughly an $80 million quarterly run rate to less than 3% of revenue now. I sort of feel like that awkward moment during a comedy act -- are we supposed to applaud or is the punch line still coming?

Either way, only one customer contributed more than 10% of revenues this quarter, so RF Micro is well on its way to righting the business. With more sequential growth expected for the coming quarter, the company is showing good momentum going into the fall holiday season.

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