Texas Instruments kicks off chip earnings season with some words of caution

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,
-0.28%

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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