Texas Instruments Inc. started chip earnings season with some cautious signals.
The chip maker, which historically reports early in the earnings cycle and is seen as a semiconductor-industry bellwether, called out “increasing weakness across industrial and a sequential decline in automotive” as it came up shy with its forecast for the current quarter.
Texas Instruments
TXN,
anticipates $3.45 billion to $3.75 billion in revenue for the ongoing quarter, along with 96 cents to $1.16 in earnings per share. The FactSet consensus was for $4.05 billion and $1.40 a share, respectively.
Shares fell 4.5% in aftermarket trading Tuesday.
Texas Instruments posted fourth-quarter net income of $1.37 billion, or $1.49 a share, compared with $1.96 billion, or $2.13 a share, in the year-earlier period. The FactSet consensus was for $1.47 a share, though the company said that earnings per share included a 3-cent benefit that wasn’t factored into its original forecasts.
Revenue fell 13% from a year before, coming in at $4.1 billion and roughly matching the FactSet consensus view. The company saw a 12% drop in analog revenue and a 10% drop in revenue from embedded processing; sales from the company’s “other” business category, which is much smaller, fell 25%.
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