(Source: Business Wire)
Microchip Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ: MCHP), a leading provider of microcontrollers and analog semiconductors, announced today that its net sales and earnings for its second quarter fiscal 2010, ending September 30, 2009 are expected to exceed the upper end of its prior guidance. Based on good starting backlog and strong bookings and sales activities for the first two months of the quarter, Microchip now expects its net sales for its second fiscal quarter to be up 12 to 14% sequentially. Microchip expects GAAP diluted earnings per share to be approximately 20 to 22 cents and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share to be approximately 26 to 27 cents. On August 6, 2009, Microchip had provided guidance of net sales increasing 7 to 11% sequentially, GAAP diluted earnings per share of approximately 18 to 20 cents, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of approximately 23 to 26 cents.
Gross margins in the second fiscal quarter are also expected to exceed the high end of our prior guidance. Gross margins are now expected to be up approximately 350 to 400 basis points sequentially versus a prior guidance of up 250 to 350 basis points.
"We are experiencing strong demand for all of our microcontroller and analog product families in the quarter with out 16-bit microcontrollers providing the highest sequential growth. Geographically, we are seeing strong demand in Asia and the Americas. Europe is unseasonably strong with revenue in the summer quarter being sequentially up for the first time in several years. We also experienced the strongest August bookings in our company's history, and consequently we are seeing strong backlog starting to build for our fiscal third quarter. We now expect inventory on our balance sheet to drop by an additional 5 days, to approximately 103 days in the second fiscal quarter ending September 30, 2009. Therefore, we are accelerating the capacity ramps in all our manufacturing facilities," said Steve Sanghi, Microchip's President and CEO.
Second Quarter Fiscal 2010 Outlook:
Our current guidance is summarized in the following table. Our guidance is based on current expectations and our actual results may differ materially from such guidance.
