Migdal HaEmek-based chip company Tower Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (Nasdaq: TSEM; TASE: TSEM), managed by CEO Russell Ellwanger, published its reports for the third quarter of 2019 today. The company's share price was down 7.31% in afternoon trading on the TASE due to disappointing guidance for the first quarter of 2019.
The company reported $312 million in revenue in the quarter, in the lower part of its $312-315 million guidance range. Tower Semiconductor does not, however, expect growth in revenue in the fourth quarter of the year. The company's share price plunged 8% on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Tower Semiconductor's organic revenue (excluding revenue from Panasonic in the TPSCo fabs and Maxim in the San Antonio fab) was 4% higher than its $306 million in revenue in the preceding quarter and 11% more than in the corresponding quarter last year.
Tower Semiconductor predicts $312 million in revenue in the fourth quarter, the same as in the third quarter, with a possible 5% deviation in either direction. This is close to the market's forecast of $311 million.
Tower Semiconductor posted a profit of $0.25 per share in the third quarter, compared with the analysts' forecasts of $0.24 per share on $312 million in revenue.
Third quarter gross profit totaled $58 million, compared with $73 million in the corresponding quarter in 2018. Operating profit fell from $39 million in the third quarter of 2018 to $23 million in the third quarter of this year.
EBITDA totaled $75 million in the third quarter, compared with $70 million in the second quarter this year and $89 million in the third quarter of 2018.
Ellwanger said, "In addition to posting solid quarter results, we made significant progress on various fronts including strong activities furthering our accretive growth strategies, and also in each of our business units - for example contracts in advanced display and micro display and 300mm CMOS industrial sensors, key end customer qualification with our SiPho platform, and continued qualifications of our RFSOI and CIS back-side illumination (BSI) 300mm and 200mm advanced roadmaps. These should bear fruits through the year 2020 and beyond. Our 300mm Uozu capacity expansion plan is on track, additionally having decided to build in-house capacity for strongly differentiated BSI and in particular BSI stacked wafer CIS processes. We look forward to 2020, during which the capacity ramp together with the aforementioned business activities and additional initiatives should come into play, resulting in growing financials."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 13, 2019
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