News

Fairchild Semiconductor Updates Third-Quarter 2001 Outlook

September 06, 2001 by Jeff Shepard

Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc. (South Portland, ME) stated it is experiencing improving order rates and raised its guidance for third-quarter 2001 revenues.

"Our bookings for the first two months of the third quarter are tracking ahead of our bookings run rate during the second quarter. And our turns bookings, which are orders that are shippable within the current quarter, have been fairly strong through July and August," said Kirk Pond, president, chairman and CEO. "High turns orders for us typically indicate our customers have fairly low inventories, and require shipment within a short period of time to meet their production schedules. In fact, an increasing number of our customers are expediting us, which means they are requesting very short delivery schedules."

"To date, over 40 percent of our bookings in the third quarter are for shipment within the quarter," continued Pond. "Previously, we guided third-quarter revenues to be down 15 to 20 percent sequentially. Due to stronger orders in July and August, and assuming this order strength continues through September, we now expect revenues to be down around 15 percent, at the high end of the range of our previous guidance.

"We have seen other signs that our revenue decline will hit bottom this quarter. Our book-to-bill ratio for the third quarter is hovering near 1:1, up from the 0.7:1 levels we've had for the past two quarters. Our 26-week backlog, which had been declining since November of 2000, stabilized in late July, and has climbed slightly during the quarter. And our 13-week backlog, a measure of demand for the next three months, turned up in early July and has climbed ever since."