Telecom Lead Europe: ST-Ericsson, a joint venture of
STMicroelectronics and Ericsson, has reported net sales of $290 million for Q1
2012, against $444 million for the same quarter of 2011 and $409 million for
the previous quarter.
The joint venture posted net loss of $312 million for the
first quarter of 2012, against net loss of $178 million for the same quarter of
2011. For the Q4 2011, the company posted $231 million loss.
The company said that sales in the first quarter,
excluding the contribution of IP licensing to a third party in the prior
quarter, decreased sequentially 27 percent as anticipated.
Furthermore, the company added that the operating loss
was higher than the previous quarter due to the lower revenues.
The company also revealed that during Q1, 2012, its
NovaThor U8500 ModAp systems to Samsung and Sony Mobile Communications started
successfully to ramp, with smartphones from both customers now hitting the
market.
“This was a two-fold quarter: on one hand, our sales
decreased substantially, as we had anticipated, due to a drop in sales of new
products at one of our largest customers, in addition to the usual seasonal
effect and to the continued decline of our legacy products,” Didier Lamouche,
president and CEO of ST-Ericsson.
For the second quarter 2012, ST-Ericsson expects net
sales to increase sequentially in a low double-digit range.
During the last quarter, the company unveiled the CG2905
and introduced first fully integrated wireless charger for mobile phones with
the PM2020.
Furthermore, the company got Samsung as its new customer
of the ST-Ericsson NovaThor platform. The new Samsung GALAXY S Advance
Android-powered smartphone uses the ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500 System.
Also, the company selected fully depleted silicon on
insulator (FD-SOI) technology for use in future mobile platforms, leveraging ST
technology based on Soitec SOI, which will enable enhanced performance from the
ST-Ericsson NovaThor platform at much lower battery usage – as much as 35
percent lower power consumption at maximum performance.
ST-Ericsson bags chipsets deal for Nokia Windows phones,
breaking Qualcomm monopoly
Last year, phone major Nokia selected ST-Ericsson as a
supplier of chipsets for future devices it plans to introduce based on the
Microsoft Windows Phone mobile platform.
