ST. PETERSBURG, FL - Jabil Circuits Inc. will close a recently acquired factory next month and cut 83 workers, a news report said today.

The Rocklin, CA, manufacturing plant, acquired by Jabil from Varian Electronics in February, employs 90, but seven employees are expected to be reassigned within the company.

Jabil purchased the Rocklin site as part of an $195 million acquisition of several factories from Varian.

In a press release, Jack Oehlke, president and chief executive, credited growth to higher sales to existing customers for specialty printer accessories and components, and gaming technology.

The firm said it will add capacity in China and Mexico. "[We] plan to expand capacity in Mexico by buying the building adjacent to our existing facility in Juarez during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005," Oehlke said. "We also are investing in our worldwide printed circuit board operations to ensure compliance with new environmental regulations."

Key Tronic guided for fiscal fourth quarter revenue to increase five to 10% sequentially and earnings of $0.08 to $0.12 per share.

Key Tronic will host a conference call today to discuss its financial results at 2:00 PM Pacific (5:00 PM Eastern). A broadcast of the conference call will be available at www.keytronic.com under "Investor Relations" or by calling 800-218-0204 or +1 303-262-2211. A 48-hour replay will be available by calling 800-405-2236 or +1 303-590-3000 (Reservation No. 11027377). A replay will also be available on the Company's Web site.

About Key Tronic

The quarterly profit rose to $74.2 million, from $16 million a year ago.

The analyst consensus was sales of $4 billion.

For the fiscal year, Flextronics recorded a profit of $339.9 million on sales of $15.91 billion.

Flextronics guided for sales of $3.7 billion to $3.9 billion for the July quarter.

For fiscal 2006, the company expects sales of $17 billion to $17.5 billion, which would be a record for EMS/ODM firms. Analysts forecast sales of $19 billion.

FRAMINGHAM, MA - Following a record quarter of worldwide shipments, the mobile phone market slowed slightly in the first quarter due to expected seasonality. According to IDC, worldwide mobile phone shipments totaled 174.3 million units in 1Q05, falling 12.6% from the fourth quarter but increasing 9.2% year over year.

Nokia maintained its no. 1 position with a 30.9% share despite enduring the largest sequential decrease in shipments. Motorola once again captured second place with further penetration into Europe and leadership in the Americas. Samsung, the only company among the leading vendors to post a sequential gain, locked up third place and regained its momentum to catch up with Motorola after experiencing declining shipments in 2004.

Holding in fourth place is LG Electronics, marking the company's third consecutive quarter of shipments greater than ten million. Sony Ericsson beat out Siemens for fifth place by just 100,000 units.

"Most vendors have increased their shipment levels from a year ago, showing that despite a slight downturn from the previous quarter, consumer demand is still strong and vendors are prepared to meet that demand with a broad selection of phones," said Ramon Llamas, research analyst for IDC's Mobility Group. "Vendors have been stretching the limits on what phones can do and what they are supposed to look like. Telephony is still at the core of the mobile phone, but now it can be wrapped with features to satisfy different consumer tastes. What were once considered high-end features are now standard on many low-cost phones as vendors battle to gain market share and consumer attention."

• Nokia - The Finnish company captured 30.9% of the market, resulting in year-on-year growth of 20.4%, but a sequential decline of 18.6%. Driving revenue and average selling price for the company was its line-up of high-end enterprise and multimedia phones. At the same time, Nokia sustained momentum in Europe and Asia, but lost ground in the Americas.
• Motorola - Despite a sequential decline of 9.7%, Motorola closed out the first quarter of 2005 with 16.5% market share and year-on-year growth of 13.4%. The company announced 27 new models for the year including the SLVR and PEBL, variations of the popular RAZR V3. The company also renewed its effort to bring more enterprise devices to the market by investing in the Java+Linux platform for smartphones.
• Samsung - The only company within the top five to post sequential growth (16.1%), Samsung captured 14.1% market share and year-on-year growth of 22.5%. By boosting shipments in the first quarter while other vendors decreased shipments after a busy fourth quarter, the Korean company was able to regain momentum to catch up with Motorola, shrinking the difference from ten million units last quarter to slightly more than four million units this quarter.
• LG Electronics - Securing its spot as the number 4 vendor with 6.4% market share, LG saw year-on-year growth of 26.9% and a sequential decline of 20.1% from 4Q04. The company reported that more than half its shipments went to North America, the largest proportion of any other vendor in the top five.
• Sony Ericsson - After a brief hiatus out of the top five, the 50-50 venture returned to wrest fifth place away from Siemens. The company captured 5.4% market share, declining 25.4% from the previous quarter but growing 6.8% from a year ago. The company released few new products to keep up with its maturing product line, but announced a lineup of high end and specialty phones to come out later in the year.

Source: IDC, April 27, 2005

FRAMINGHAM, MA - The consumer semiconductor market will more than double between 2004 and 2009, expanding from just over $14 billion to almost $30 billion, a new IDC study predicts. The market will experience the fastest year-over-year growth rates through 2007.

Consumer semiconductor growth is fueled by increasing importance in existing and developing end-products in the "digital home" environment. Consumer semiconductors are the enablers of both the underlying technology and the consumer-facing features of the digital home.

"The consumer semiconductor market is one of the fastest growing and most challenging segments in the semiconductor industry," said IdaRose Sylvester, senior research analyst at IDC. "With opportunity comes significant technological, market and competitive challenges, and only the most strategically-focused semiconductors vendors are going to benefit substantially from this growth."

The consumer semiconductor landscape is on the verge of dramatic evolution. Some markets such as digital TV represent great growth and potential for new entrants, but other markets, such as DVD offer moderate expansion and exceptional challenges. Due to these forces, the market in 2009 will be dramatically different than it is today.

NEWARK, NY -- IEC Electronics, a publicly held EMS firm, today reported second quarter net income of $73,000 on sales of $4.7 million.

For the quarter ended April 1, sales dropped 36% year-on-year, due to a decline in orders from two major customers. Net income dropped from $124,000 last year.

In a press statement, chairman and CEO W. Barry Gilbert said, "The business has been restructured delivering solid gross profits and excellent inventory turns even though our sales reflect the previously reported loss of Motorola and Teradyne, which historically were a majority of the company's business."

IEC has cut $1.5 million annually from its overhead during the past six months, Gilbert added.

The company landed two new accounts that are eventually expected to be worth $6 million to $10 million annually in sales.

Another customer said it would cease its business with IEC in July and bring its work in-house.

For the quarter, IEC took restructuring costs of $41,000.

SAN FRANCISCO - Fabrinet, an engineering and electromechanical manufacturing services company, will purchase the manufacturing facilities located in Fuzhou, China, from JDS Uniphase.

The deal is expected to be completed by June 30. Terms were not revealed.

Last week, JDS said it would transfer its Ewing and Mountain Lakes, NJ, manufacturing facilities to Fabrinet. JDS has contracted assembly work to Fabrinet since 2000.

The Fuzhou deal includes the 225,000 sq. ft. Fuzhou plant, which makes optical components, and its 500 employees.  Fuzhou port sits at the mouth of the Minjiang River in South China.

Last December, Fabrinet acquired JDS Uniphase's manufacturing facilities in Singapore and Bintan, Indonesia. 

HERNDON, VA - Saying industry "must have means of differentiating RoHS-compliant products," a leading industry consortium today called for the use of unique part numbers for such parts.

 The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative says the majority of its OEM and EMS members "strongly support" the change. In a statement, iNEMi said:

 "Demonstrating and certifying compliance with RoHS is a complex undertaking made more difficult by the electronics industry's distributed design and manufacturing supply chains and the incompatibility between the current tin-lead (SnPb) and RoHS-compliant lead-free manufacturing processes. Industry must have means of differentiating RoHS-compliant products that is common across all of the companies involved in, or contributing to, product manufacture, including component suppliers, component distributors, EMS providers, OEMs and their design partners. We are convinced that the only practical way to accomplish this goal is through separate part numbers that can clearly identify RoHS compliance and manufacturing process compatibility.

 iNEMI said support for the switch comes from Alcatel, Celestica, Cray, Dell, Delphi,  HP, Intel, Jabil Circuit, Lucent, Microsoft, Plexus, Sanmina-SCI, Solectron, StorageTek and Sun Microsystems.

"Many of our members feel very strongly about this issue, and they came to us, asking that iNEMI issue a position statement to go on record as supporting separate part numbers," said Jim McElroy, executive director and CEO of iNEMI.  iNEMI supplied statements from several members supporting the position.

"Celestica is a strong supporter of the introduction of new part numbers for RoHS-compliant components," said Dan Shea, chief technology officer, Celestica. "By assigning unique part numbers for compliant parts, global suppliers would greatly support proper component segregation and handling - driving a smoother transition to RoHS compliance for the electronics industry as a whole."

According to Vivek Gupta, program manager for Intel's Assembly Technology Division, "Intel requires its suppliers to change part numbers when they transition to RoHS-compliant parts and follow the established change control process.  Suppliers are expected to mark their RoHS-compliant products per established JEDEC/IPC standards and implement controls to prevent mixing of RoHS-compliant parts."