We saw an avalanche of chip designers offering midquarter guidance last week. The larger trend is bad news, as nearly everyone either lowered their outlooks, came in below Wall Street's expectations, or both. Have a look at the midpoints of recently updated guidance ranges:
Company | Original Guidance | New Guidance |
---|---|---|
Altera | $570 million | $543 million |
Fairchild Semiconductor | $440 million | $405 million |
Vishay Intertechnology | $695 million | $640 million |
Texas Instruments | $3.55 billion | $3.25 billion |
Source: Company press releases.
On top of these gloomy revenue figures, many of these companies also lowered their earnings outlooks. And the same reasons echo all over the industry: TI blames "broadly lower demand across a wide range of products, markets, and customers" while Vishay points to a lack of traditional seasonality strength as the computing and consumer markets stubbornly refuse to end their swoons.
This adds up to a bleak holiday quarter, at least when it comes to consumer electronics and PC systems. Any one of these bona fide economic forecasts could be dismissed as an outlier, but this many voices singing the same tune in unison can't be ignored.
That said, there are some glimmers of hope amid all this darkness. For example, NVIDIA
And Broadcom
Now, the mobile markets that drive Broadcom's and NVIDIA's success stories also play a large part for less optimistic peers like TI and Altera. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff in such a mixed-up performance harvest? The best way to do that is to build a comprehensive watchlist to keep a close eye on how the semiconductor industry unfolds. Get started right here:
- Add Vishay Intertechnology to My Watchlist.
- Add Texas Instruments to My Watchlist.
- Add NVIDIA to My Watchlist.
- Add NetLogic Microsystems to My Watchlist.
- Add Fairchild Semiconductor International to My Watchlist.
- Add Broadcom to My Watchlist.
- Add Altera to My Watchlist.
- Or add all of these companies to My Watchlist in one fell click.