News
LAGUNA, Philippines, Jan. 11 -- Electronics manufacturing services provider Integrated Microelectronics Inc. will exhibit at Internepcon World Japan in Tokyo later this month.
The show takes place Jan. 19 to 21, at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center.
IMI president and chief executive Arthur R. Tan called the show "a good venue to showcase our complete and high value electronics manufacturing solutions."
IMI performs PCB assembly, subassembly and integration, plus design and product development, and order fulfillment. Japanese customers account for 70% of IMI's annual revenues.
Investment bank Deutsche Bank today forecast EMS sales to slow through at least the first half of 2005. In a research note, analyst Chris Whitmore predicted 7% year-over-year growth for the industry in 2005.
"We remain concerned about the EMS industry's ability to meaningfully expand margins in the current business environment. We believe continued excess capacity, increasing competition from Asia-based producers and slowing near-term demand trends will likely result in continued margin pressure," Whitemore wrote.
Whitemore said that margin pressures and competition should be "somewhat offset" by restructuring and other cost-reduction activities.
The bank said fourth-quarter 2004 results should be in line with tepid expectations. "We believe most EMS vendors will report in line with our EPS forecasts, despite continued weak end-market demand in the December quarter." The bank's outlook for Sanmina-SCI was cited as "most cautious." "We expect Sanmina-SCI to post December quarter results at the low end of guidance," Whitmore wrote.
GREENVILLE, SC, Jan. 11 -- Kemet Corp. said today that December revenue was down 10% sequentially due to paring of inventories at its distributors. The parts maker said March revenue should improve compared to December.
Speaking at the Needham Growth Conference, chief executive Dr. Jeffrey Graves said, "During our last earnings conference call, we reported that Kemet distributors had built inventory of parts in the June quarter in anticipation of strong growth in their sales in the second half. When their sales growth was more moderate than they expected, in the September quarter they reduced inventory levels, resulting in reduced Kemet revenue in the September quarter. This inventory correction continued into the December quarter."
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