August 1, 2002 - National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM) today announced that sales in its first quarter of fiscal 2003, ending August 25, 2002, are now expected to be around the same level as in the recently completed fourth quarter, when the company reported revenues of $419.5 million. On June 6, the company had guided that sales would grow sequentially by 6 to 8 percent during the current quarter. However, overall order rates, including turns orders, were lower than expected in June, especially for products for PC and related peripherals, such as CRTs and displays. Turns orders are customer orders requested for delivery in the same quarter. Weekly order rates for the company improved in July compared with June and are now more consistent with original expectations.
Gross margin percentage is also projected to be comparable to fourth quarter. Overall, National Semiconductor expects to remain profitable.
National Semiconductor will host a conference call related to this announcement at 5:00 p.m. EDT today, Thursday, August 1, 2002. Call-in numbers are: West Coast (415) 537-1895 and East Coast (212) 896-6100. Participants will be Chief Executive Officer Brian Halla, Chief Operating Officer Donald Macleod and Chief Financial Officer Lewis Chew. The conference call will also be simultaneously webcast at: www.national.com/invest. Replays of the call will be available starting at 6:30 p.m. EDT at (800) 633-8284 with reservation number 20802865, or at www.national.com/invest.
This outlook contains forward looking statements dependent on a number of risks and uncertainties, including such factors as, but not restricted to, new orders received and shipped during the remainder of the first quarter, the degree of factory utilization, the successful sale of existing inventories, and the ramp up of recently introduced products. Other risk factors are included in the company's 10-Q from the third quarter ended February, 24, 2002 and the 10-K for the year ended May 27, 2001 (see the Outlook section of Management's Discussion and Analysis of Results of Operations and Financial Conditions) and the Annual Report dated May 27, 2001.
