SAN FRANCISCO—Programmable logic vendor Altera Corp. Tuesday (Jan. 26) reported sharp increases in fourth quarter 2009 revenue and profit and the company's chief executive predicted that its lead in 40-nm FPGAs would help drive growth in 2010.
Altera (San Jose, Calif.) reported fourth quarter sales of $365 million, up 27 percent compared to the previous quarter and up 16 percent compared to fourth quarter of 2008. New product sales increased 30 percent sequentially, Altera said.
Altera posted a fourth quarter net income of $103 million, or 34 cents per diluted share, up 82 percent from the previous quarter and up 24 percent compared with the year-ago period.
Altera's fourth quarter numbers exceeded analyst expectations. Analysts were expecting Altera to post sales of around $335 million and earnings per share of around 27 cents, according to Yahoo Finance.
Sales for 2009 were $1.2 billion, a decrease of 13 percent compared with $1.37 billion in 2008, Altera said. Net income for the year was $251.1 million, or 84 cents per share, down 30 percent compared to 2008, Altera said.
"Our new products were the growth leaders in a quarter that saw sequential improvements across all product and market segment categories," said John Daane, Altera president, chairman and CEO, in s statement. "We believe that in 2010 our 40-nm product leadership will create an additional growth driver for the company as customers shift from the prototype stage to production-based demand."
Altera started shipping 40-nm FPGAs in late 2008, several months ahead of competitor Xilinx Inc. Xilinx recently announced full production shipments of 40-nm Virtex-6 devices.
Altera said it expects first quarter revenue to increase by 5 to 10 percent, reaching between $383.3 million and $401 million.
