Santa Clara, California based National Semiconductor Corp’s figures came to a grinding halt in its third quarter figures reported yesterday, buffeted by a one time acquisition charge, but mostly the figures are an early indicator as to just how bad the chip slow-down is going to be. Net income more than halved compared to the same quarter last year, down from $57 million to $23 million, after its first two strong quarters had placed the company over 20% higher in both sales and income for the first half of the year. Sales rose just 5% to $600 million over last year’s third quarter. The acquisition charge accounted for $11.4 million, associated with the purchase of Sitel Sierra BV, a Dutch wireless communications component maker. The statutory explanation from the office of the president ran: A number of our markets reflected lower than expected sales through the year- end holiday season, particularly the PC market, resulting in increased component inventory levels and significantly lower bookings for our semiconductor products. We did see a pickup in new orders through February, but bookings have not regained their normal seasonal momentum. Recent book-to-bill ratios published by the US Semiconductor Industry Association had earmarked the sector with low expectations. The company said that bookings in the quarter are 20 % off against orders in the third quarter in 1995. The nine month summary leaves National Semiconductor still ahead on revenues, with sales up 17.6% but down on net income 3.6% to $176 million. The weakest markets for Nat Semi were analog and mixed signal chips, and the declining sectors of Bipolar logic and Eprom memory, while its stronger markets were components for Local Area Networks and publication communications networks. Net Semi’s share price, already slumped due to recent investor fears, was still bumping along at $14.75 (close to its 52 week low of $14.00) as Computergram went to press last night.
