SAN JOSE (dpa-AFX) - Programmable logic device maker Xilinx Inc. (XLNX), Wednesday reported a drop in second-quarter profit, as revenues declined in most categories and expenses increased. Earnings for the quarter, however, came in ahead of Street estimates, while revenues fell short of expectations. Looking ahead, the company projected a weak revenue outlook for the third quarter.
For the second quarter, Xilinx reported a profit that dropped 26 percent to $126.3 million or $0.47 per share from $170.9 million or $0.65 per share in the year-ago period.
On average, 25 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.44 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.
Over 8 percent of the drop in earnings comprised of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles, restructuring charges, and increased research and development expenses.
Revenues for the quarter dropped 10 percent to $555.2 million from $619.7 million in the year-ago quarter. Twenty-one Street analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $562.8 million for the quarter.
Gross margin for the quarter was 63.9 percent compared with 65.6 percent last year.
North America revenues dropped 14 percent from last year, while Asia Pacific revenues fell 21 percent. Europe and Japan grew 1 percent and 11 percent respectively.
By end market, three of four categories recorded revenue declines from the prior-year quarter. Communications revenue dropped 18 percent, followed by Consumer & Automotive at 5 percent, and Industrial & Other revenues fell 4 percent. Data Processing revenues were flat for the quarter.
Operating income for the quarter dropped 30 percent to $154.8 million from $188.3 million in the year-ago quarter.
Xilinx announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.19 per outstanding share of common stock, payable on November 30, 2011 to all stockholders of record at the close of business on November 9, 2011.
During the quarter, Xilinx taped out the PLD industry's first embedded systems platform, the Zynq-7000 device. The Zynq-7000 product family combines an industry-standard ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore processing system with Xilinx 28-nm unified programmable logic architecture.
The company's first Stacked Silicon Interconnect or SSI product, Virtex-7 2000T FPGA, generated considerable design win activity during the quarter, is scheduled to ship in the December quarter.
Looking ahead to the third quarter, Xilinx expect sales to be down 3 to 8 percent sequentially. The Street currently expects revenue of $570.2 million for the third quarter.
Gross margin for the third quarter is expected to be approximately 64 percent.
XLNX closed Wednesday's regular trading at $29.60, down $1.21 or 3.93%, on the Nasdaq. In after-hours, the stock gained $0.20 or 0.68%.
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