Supertex, Inc. (SUPX) reported net sales of $16.7 million, up 5% sequentially but down 5% year over year. The sequential growth came from all target markets.
Headquartered in California, Supertex designs and sells high-voltage analog and mixed signal Integrated Circuits (IC) for the Medical Electronics, Imaging, Telecom, LED Lighting, and industrial/other markets.
Total LED driver sales, including general lighting applications, grew to $4.4 million compared to $3.9 million in the prior quarter.
The largest customer for Supertex continued to purchase large quantities of LED drivers for backlighting LCD TVs throughout the third quarter. This customer announced that sales of its LED TVs exceeded expectations and surpassed 2.6 million in 2009. Sales in 2010 are expected to exceed 10 million units for this customer. During the quarter, Supertex also shipped LED drivers to another Asian LED TV maker and management expects to add a third customer in the fourth quarter.
Sales of imaging products and EL inverters for cell phones grew 51% sequentially while telecommunications IC sales increased 31%. Sales of medical ultrasound products were slightly down and the demand for medical foundry service business declined by $1.1 million.
Gross margin came in at 48%, lower than management’s targeted goal due to lower net sales and lower capacity utilization in recent quarters compared to previous years. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at 22 cents compared to 15 cents in the previous quarter and 25 cents in the year-ago quarter, easily beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 14 cents.
Going forward, management expects sales of medical ultrasound products and foundry services, along with sales of proprietary products and foundry services in all of the targeted markets to increase by 8 % – 12% by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 on a sequential basis. Management stated that over 70% of forecasted sales have already been shipped or backlogged.
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