Atmel Corporation (ATML) recently announced a complete Digital Audio Platform for consumer, automotive and industrial applications.
The Atmel Digital Audio Platform offers audio equipment and mobile accessory Original Equipment Manufacturers, a complete hardware and firmware solution that greatly simplifies the task of designing high-quality digital audio equipment.
Meanwhile, the Digital Audio Platform also integrates dedicated microcontrollers, evaluation kits and firmware IP. The firmware IP includes control and streaming interfaces for a selection of popular smartphones and portable media players as well as MP3, WMA and AAC decoders to allow designers to decode compressed music files; USB protocol stacks; and a complete file system to allow designers to navigate through mass storage devices such as USB Flash disks or SD cards.
Earlier, Atmel reported revenues of $479.4 million in the third quarter of 2011, up 8% year over year, but almost flat sequentially and at the low end of its own guidance. Excluding the impact of the divestiture of the Smart Card business, revenues grew 15% year over year.
Microcontrollers business generated revenues of $301 million, flat sequentially and up 18% year over year. On a product basis, 8-bit microcontrollers were up 1% sequentially and up over 13% year-over-year. 32-bit microcontrollers were down 4% sequentially but increased over 41% year-over-year.
Smartphone and tablet applications continued to experience strong growth. However, industrial applications experienced a slow-down primarily due to the uncertain macroeconomic environment.
Management stated that maXTouch revenue set a revenue record in the third quarter with particularly strong shipments for smartphones. Atmel is experiencing excellent acceptance of its industry-leading maXTouch E Series family. Recent customer design wins for Atmel include Samsung’s Galaxy Note, two new HTC smartphones, the Windows Mango Titan and Android-based Rhyme as well as Motorola’s Electrify, Droid Razr and Atrix 2. Nokia has released a number of new smartphones featuring maXTouch, and Kyocera recently released the Milano smartphone.
Revenues from the nonvolatile memory segment came in at $66 million, down 7% sequentially and down 1% year over year. The sequential decline in the memory business was primarily due to a slowdown in demand from many customers in the PC and consumer markets combined with a weaker pricing environment.
Serial E-Squared Memory business was flat sequentially and was down 10% year over year. Serial Flash business decreased 25% sequentially and 13% year over year.
Revenues from the RF and automotive segment declined 1% sequentially but up 15% year over year to $52 million in the third quarter of 2011.
Revenues from the ASIC segment came in at $60 million, up 14% sequentially but down 22% year over year. Atmel sold the Smart Card business at the end of third quarter, which was included in the ASIC business and contributed approximately $27 million in revenues in the third quarter of last year.
On a geographical basis, Asia accounted for 63% of total revenues, up from 60% in the prior quarter as China continued to grow as an end-market and Japan rebounded from the effects of the tsunami.
Europeaccounted for 24% of total revenues. However, Americas were down to 13% as compared to 15% of total revenues in the prior quarter.
During the third quarter, Atmel acquired Spain-based Advanced Digital Design that develops power line communication solutions.
Net income came in at $116.7 million or $0.25 per diluted share compared to a net income of $90.9 million or $0.19 in the second quarter of 2011 and a net income of $219.8 million or $0.47 in the year-ago quarter. Excluding one-time items but including stock-based compensation expense, net income came in at $0.23 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.20.
During the second quarter of 2011, Atmel repurchased 6.1 million shares of its common stock in the open market at an average price of $9.23 totalling $56.3 million.
Going forward, Atmel expects revenues to be down 12% to 16% on a sequential basis. Gross margin is projected at approximately 48%, +/- 50 basis points. Operating expenses are expected to be approximately $135 million, +/- $2 million.
Atmel expects maXTouch revenues to exceed $375 million in 2011, up from the previous forecast of $350 million. This impressive growth is driven by the continued rapid growth of smartphones, Android tablets and penetration into new high-volume applications.
