ADI Results Top Estimates; Boosts Dividend

(RTTNews) - Chipmaker Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) said Tuesday after the markets closed that its first quarter profit rose 17% from last year, as order rates improved in January, particularly in the industrial and automotive end markets.

The company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, also came in above analysts' expectations as did its quarterly revenue. At the same time, the company forecasts second quarter revenue and earnings above analysts' current consensus estimates.

"We executed well in the first quarter, with results that were near the high end of our guidance range and year-over-year revenue growth of 23%," said Vincent Roche, ADI President and CEO.

The company also said that its Board of Directors has approved an 8% increase in its quarterly cash dividend, from $0.37 to $0.40 per share. The increased quarterly dividend will be paid on March 10 to all shareholders of record on February 27.

Analog Devices shares are currently losing 1.72% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $58.81, up $1.76 or 3.09%. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $42.57 to $58.86.

Analog Devices makes analog, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing integrated circuits that convert, condition, and process real-world phenomena, such as temperature, pressure, sound, light, speed, and motion into electrical signals.

Last year, Analog Devices bought Hittite Microwave Corp for about $2 billion. Hittite makes integrated circuits, modules, subsystems and instrumentation for RF, microwave and millimeter wave application.

For the first quarter ended January 31, 2015, Norwood, Massachusetts-based Analog Devices reported net income of $178.8 million or $0.57 per share, compared to $152.6 million or $0.48 per share for the year-ago quarter.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter increased to $0.63 from $0.49 in the prior year quarter.

On average, 25 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.61 per share for the first quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Gross margin for the quarter improved to 65.2% from 65.1% a year earlier, while operating margin shrank to 26.9% from 28.6% last year.

Revenue for the first quarter rose 23% to $771.99 million from $628.24 million in the same quarter last year. Twenty-five analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of$760.54 million for the first quarter.

For the first quarter, revenue from industrial end market rose 21% to $349.8 million, while that from the automotive end market fell 1% to $123.7 million. Consumer revenue increased 27% to $94.8 million and communications revenue surged 45% to $203.7 million.

Looking forward to the second quarter, the company forecasts revenue of $810 million to $830 million, earnings of $0.62 to $0.66 per share and adjusted earnings of$0.70 to $0.74 per share. Analyst currently expect the company to earn $0.69 per share on revenue of $806.84 million for the second quarter.