Earnings Season Gets in Full Bloom
The first quarter has come to a close, and companies big and small will begin this week reporting their results. Among them will be Motorola Inc., which releases its first-quarter results today. Analysts surveyed by First Call project the wireless telecom giant will earn 58 cents for the period, compared with 28 cents in the year-ago quarter.
Meanwhile, Wall Street is expecting a slam-dunk quarter from chip maker Advanced Micro Devices. The company recently announced that it rang up more than $1 billion in sales during its first quarter. AMD told analysts it will report revenue growth in the range of 10% over its previous quarter, coming in about $1.06 billion. AMD’s Athlon microprocessor has given the company’s performance a leg up. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said it achieved its goal of selling at least 1.2 million AMD Athlon processors during the quarter. Analysts at First Call expect the company to post earnings per share of 48 cents when financial results are released Wednesday. A year ago, the chip maker reported a loss of 81 cents a share. AMD archrival Intel will report its first-quarter earnings April 18.
Other heavy hitters reporting quarterly earnings this week:
* Investors will be curious about Seagate Technology’s fiscal third-quarter earnings when it reports Wednesday, particularly since it announced a $20-billion deal with Veritas Software to take the storage-drive maker private. Wall Street expects Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Seagate to earn 15 cents a share, compared with 49 cents a year ago.
* Programmable logic device maker Altera will also report earnings Wednesday. Analysts project that the San Jose company will earn 34 cents a share, compared with 23 cents the year earlier.
* Analysts expect Sun Microsystems to earn 23 cents a share, which is in line with First Call estimates, when it reports its third-quarter earnings Thursday. Revenue is projected to be $3.7 billion. A year ago, Sun earned 18 cents a share.
* Wall Street anticipates Gateway will report first-quarter results Thursday that are 10 cents above the year-ago level. First Call sees earnings of 41 cents a share for the PC maker, compared with 31 cents last year.
* Chip-equipment maker KLA-Tencor on Thursday is expected to report third-quarter earnings per share of 32 cents versus 11 cents a year ago. The San Jose company makes tools that catch chip defects during production.
* Zip-drive maker and Seagate competitor Iomega has watched its stock struggle for any real upward gains recently. Wall Street projects the Roy, Utah, company will make a profit of 4 cents a share in its first quarter when it reports Thursday.
