ST-Ericsson, a joint venture of STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), reported financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2010.
"Sales in the fourth quarter came in line with our expectations, even slightly better," said Gilles Delfassy ST-Ericsson president and CEO. "New products that started to sell in 2010, which represented more than a quarter of our total sales in Q4, became a bigger contributor to our revenue growing more than 50 percent sequentially. Continued strong performance from our new 2G/EDGE platforms in addition to initial HSPA+ modem sales offset weakness in the TD-SCDMA market and the anticipated decrease in our legacy products.
Operating loss increased sequentially mainly due to higher operating expenses reflecting anticipated seasonality and currency effects, as well as price erosion due to our ongoing legacy product transition. However, we also saw $13 million of savings as we completed our restructuring as planned and on time.
Overall, 2010 was a pivotal year for ST-Ericsson. Today, we are well on our way to completing the transformation of our company like we set out to do - focusing on expanding our product portfolio to the smartphone and tablet markets, where we aim to be a leader with best-in-class modems and application solutions. In fact, we are seeing increasing traction in these markets with products such as our U8500 smartphone platform, which we plan to ramp in the second half of the year with several Tier 1 customers.
In 2011, our focus is to deliver our exciting new products to customers and improve financial performance as we complete our transition. While our near-term outlook is challenging, we are making good progress and are confident that our work will put us on the path to market leadership and sustainable profitable growth."
Additional financial information
The net financial position[2] at the end of the fourth quarter was negative $82 million, which compares to positive $39 million at the end of the third quarter. During the fourth quarter the company sold trade receivables without recourse, of which $166 million were outstanding at the end of the quarter, representing a sequential decrease of $13 million. Inventory decreased by $20 million reaching $275 million at the end of the fourth quarter.
Outlook
For the first quarter 2011, the company expects net sales to decline sequentially, reflecting both the accelerating decline of legacy products and the effect of first quarter seasonality.
Highlights - products, technology and wins publicly announced in fourth quarter 2010
- In November, ST-Ericsson announced the collaboration with Quanta Computer on LTE modules and USB dongles. The partnership was highlighted by a live video demonstration on a Quanta Computer tablet over TD-LTE network at the closing ceremony of Expo 2010 Shanghai China.
- ST-Ericsson announced it is joining forces with Nokia to drive TD-LTE in China. At Expo 2010 Shanghai China, ST-Ericsson and Nokia demonstrated video streaming and other multimedia services on a TD-LTE Nokia booklet containing ST-Ericsson's M700 TD-LTE thin modem.
- In December, Samsung selected ST-Ericsson's single G4906 GSM/GPRS platform for its Ch@t 322 Dual-SIM Dual-Standby mobile telephone, launched in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Southeast Asia, India, China, Middle East, and Africa.
- In December, Australian telecommunication operator Telstra, together with Acer and Ericsson, launched the first netbook with a built-in 21Mbps HSPA+ mobile broadband module, based on ST-Ericsson's M570 thin modem.
source: ST-Ericsson
