Texas Instruments Results Suffer With Chip Price Drop

Texas Instruments Inc.’s first-quarter profit fell 29%, sharply below Wall Street expectations, largely because of an industrywide drop in memory chip prices since last fall.

The Dallas-based company’s revenue from licensing its patented technology also declined notably.

Texas Instruments said Friday that it earned $163 million, or 84 cents per share, for the quarter ended March 31. It earned $230 million, or $1.21 a share, for the period a year ago.

Wall Street analysts had forecast a profit of about $1.06 per share. TI stock fell $1 to $51.375 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The chip maker joins a parade of companies hurt by slow personal computer sales. PC makers have put off buying so-called dynamic random-access memory chips while they shed their own excess inventory. That has driven down prices and hurt profit margins for TI and its customers, including No. 1 PC maker Compaq Computer Corp., which has warned of disappointing results.

At a Glance:

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