ELKHART, IN -- CTS announced first-quarter EMS segment sales plunged 27% on lower demand for defense and aerospace electronics.

During the period, the electronics manufacturing services company saw sales of printed circuit boards for defense and aerospace end-products fall $14.3 million, while industrial electronics dropped $7.1 million. PCBs for communications rose $3.7 million. Overall sales for the EMS unit were $51.5 million, and the unit took an operating loss of $619,000.

CTS took restructuring and related charges of $822,000 in the quarter, covering costs of closing its EMS operations in China.

Overall revenues were $149.5 million, up 2% from last year and 8% from the fourth quarter. Net earnings were $3.6 million, up 50% year-over-year.

Components and sensors segment sales grew 28% from period last year.

CTS president and chief executive Kieran OSullivan said, "We stayed on track in the first quarter for our full-year profitability, despite softness in our EMS business and the mixed global economic conditions. We recognize we have work to do to simplify our business, optimize our capital utilization while improving our margins and completing the integration of our D&R operations."

CTS said it is maintaining its full-year 2013 guidance, though at the low end of the sales increase of 12% to 15% over 2012.

"We expect continued headwinds on the top line and the first half of the year with improvement in the second half," said CFO Thomas Kroll. "Just a few other points to go with that would be we’ve lowered the breakeven point of the business, but our actions that were taken some $5 million.

Kroll added that CTS expects EMS sales for fiscal 2013 to be fall in the "high single digits" from 2012.

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