STMicroelectronics Q4 Profit Up; Expects To Invest Up To $1.1 Bln In 2017

(RTTNews) - STMicroelectronics (STM), a semiconductor company, reported that its net income attributable to the company significantly increased to $112 million or $0.13 per share, from $2 million in the year-ago quarter.

On a year-over-year basis, operating income before impairment and restructuring charges improved by $124 million mainly due to higher revenues, improved product mix, manufacturing efficiencies and fab loading.

Quarterly net revenues grew to $1.86 billion, from $1.67 billion in the prior year. On a year-over-year basis, fourth quarter net revenues increased 11.5% on strong growth across most product families.

Carlo Bozotti, STMicroelectronics President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "Based on market forecasts, a positive booking trend, and a strong point-of-sales performance at our distributors, we see the momentum of the second half of 2016 to continue entering 2017."

The company expects that its first quarter to reflect better than normal seasonality, with a sequential net revenues decline of about 2.4% at the midpoint. On a year-over year basis, this would translate into a net revenues growth of about 12.5% at the mid-point.

The company expects first quarter 2017 revenues to decrease about 2.4% on a sequential basis, plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

In order to support ST's innovative product portfolio and to fuel significant revenue growth in 2017 and beyond, particularly from new specialized technologies and products, the company expects to invest about $1 billion to $1.1 billion in 2017.

Specifically, the company is investing in 300mm front-end manufacturing and in back-end assembly and test to support new products. In particular, it anticipates a newly won program to ramp with substantial revenues in the second half of 2017.