ST. PETERSBURG, FL -- Jabil's fiscal third-quarter net profit rose 519% to $38.4 million on sales of $3.09 billion, up just under 3%.

For the quarter ended May 31, Jabil cut its restructuring and impairment charges to $3.5 million, from $25.3 million last year. However, the EMS firm also pared its R&D expenses about 24% to $8 million in the quarter.

The company guided for fourth-quarter revenue of $3.2 billion to $3.3 billion, and full-year revenues of $12.7 billion to $12.8 billion, up about 4% year-over-year. It guided for full-year core operating income growth of 18%, and EBITDA of approximately $615 million, up 12%.

Fiscal 2008 EBITDA is expected to increase 13% from 2007, with margins expected to rise 40 basis points.

Full fiscal year EMS revenues are forecast to be $8.3 billion, while the consumer division is on track for $3.8 billion in sales and the after-market service division for $600,00 million. Core operating income expectations are estimated to be approximately 3.4% for the EMS division, 1.2% for the consumer division, and 7.1% for the after-market services division.

On a conference call Tuesday, president and CEO Tim Main said the company sees a rebound coming. "We have said for several quarters that we expected revenue to stabilize in mid fiscal 2008 with the resumption of growth in the fiscal fourth quarter to fiscal first quarter 2009 time frame. We are now seeing this expectation come to fruition and hope to see an acceleration of this trend in fiscal 2009, as new program wins and significant expansion with existing customers is folded into our results."

He added that the mobility, telecom (with new business from Nokia-Siemens Networks coming online) and peripheral sectors are seeing growth. Also, the automotive sector returned to profitability in the quarter. Displays remains weakest segment, while computing and storage continue to be strong.

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