8 February 2013

Veeco’s bookings rise 10% in Q4/2012, driven by MBE during MOCVD overcapacity

Epitaxial deposition and process equipment maker Veeco Instruments Inc of Plainview, NY, USA says that, due to its ongoing revenue recognition accounting review announced on 15 November, it is currently unable to report revenue and earnings information for fourth-quarter and full-year 2012. The firm will not be hosting an earnings call at this time, and is providing selected business highlights as follows.

For Q4/2012, unit shipments were in line with expectations. Bookings were $92.3m, including: MOCVD of $62.8m, MBE of $12.6m (LED & Solar together totaling $75.4m) and Data Storage of $16.9m. This is up 10.3% from Q3’s $83.7m, which included: MOCVD of $63m, MBE of $5m (LED & Solar together totaling $67.8m) and Data Storage of $15.9m. Total full-year 2012 bookings were $392m. At the end of Q4, Veeco took a $16m adjustment to reduce order backlog across its businesses. Nevertheless, during the quarter the unaudited cash balance rose from $574m to $579m.

Veeco says that, amid its ongoing focus on cost controls, Q4 operating costs (unaudited) are expected to be roughly flat with Q3 (despite higher professional costs associated with the ongoing accounting review).

“While we cannot provide revenue and earnings information at this time, fourth quarter shipments, bookings, and operating expenses are expected to come in about where we planned,” comments chairman & CEO John R. Peeler. “Bookings improved a bit sequentially from the third quarter due to some important research wins in our MBE business. We are pleased that the company continued to increase our cash balance in this overall challenging environment,” he adds.

“Looking at 2013, we do not see any clear signs that the overcapacity in our MOCVD business and weak end-market demand in Data Storage will improve in the near term,” Peeler notes. “Customers across our markets continue to tightly guard spending and limit capacity expansions, and tight credit policies limit some of our Asian customers’ ability to raise capital and buy more equipment. The LED industry clearly remains in an equipment digestion period. With few MOCVD deals available, we have also experienced continued competitive pricing pressure,” he adds.

“We are therefore focused on continuing to drive down Veeco’s operating expenses and manufacturing costs while maintaining critical investments in new product development,” Peeler continues. “Our goal is to be well positioned with competitive products and a strong customer support infrastructure when the market recovers. LEDs are expected to expand from 5% of general lighting to over 30% over the next few years, and continued strong demand for data storage will drive future hard-drive industry investments. While we are confident that demand for our products will improve, we are currently unable to predict the timing of a recovery.”

Tags: Veeco MOCVD MBE

Visit: www.veeco.com