Third-Quarter Profit Shoots Up as Irvine’s Powerwave Diversifies

Powerwave Technologies Inc., Irvine supplier of amplifiers for wireless communications networks, posted a big gain in net income for the third quarter on record sales.

Net income rose to $5.6 million, or 27 cents a share, from $121,000, or 1 cent a share, a year ago. Sales rocketed to $76.9 million from $16.5 million.

The results were announced after U.S. markets closed, but Powerwave shares hit a 52-week high of $55.50 during the trading session before closing at $55.31, up $3.93, or 7.6%, in Nasdaq trading. Volume totaled nearly 1.2 million shares, more than double the daily average over the last three months.

The company said third-quarter earnings were helped by its efforts to diversify. In the latest period, sales to Nortel Networks Corp. accounted for about 35% of Powerwave’s revenue and Lucent Technologies Inc. sales made up 10% of revenue. Five other customers each exceeded 5% of third-quarter revenue.

Third-quarter North American revenue was $49.9 million, while revenue from Asia was $18.6 million. Total European and other international revenue was $8.4 million in the latest period.

Powerwave also said it plans to expand production capacity during the fourth quarter.