News

For its fiscal third-quarter (to end-December 2007), optical module and component maker Opnext Inc of Eatontown, NJ, USA says it expects revenues of about $66.4m, down on its original guidance of $77-80m. This is also down 13% from $76.6m last quarter but up 8% on $61.7m a year ago.

Opnext says that the shortfall from earlier guidance is mainly due to:

• about $4m of supply- and quality-related issues, including 40Gb/s digital mux/demux ICs purchased from an external supplier requiring a change to alleviate potential quality issues (with the transition to the new IC beginning during the quarter) and XENPAK SR (short-reach) production being limited due to shortages of parts provided by external suppliers (resolved by the end of the quarter);

• about $4m of anticipated 10Gb/s transceiver demand primarily related to customer inventory management programs not being pulled by the end of the quarter;

• about $2.5m related to lower-than-expected 300-pin fixed-wavelength demand.

However, for its fiscal fourth-quarter 2008 (to end March), Opnext expects revenue to bounce back due to:

• increased shipments of 40Gb/s and Xenpak SR products;

• qualification of XFP transceivers at a large data communication network equipment customer; and

• qualification of 300-pin tunable transceivers at a large telecom network equipment customer.

*Opnext’s board of directors has approved the repurchase of up to $20m of its common stock in total over the next 24 months. The firm says that it may purchase stock on the open market or in privately negotiated transactions from time-to-time, depending on market and business conditions. Any repurchases will be made using available working capital.

See related items:

Opnext grows 38% year-on-year, driven by 10Gb/s

Opnext’s sales for 10-40Gbps products rise 88% year-on-year

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