Altera posts third consecutive sales record

Dylan McGrath

October 19, 2010

Dylan McGrath

SAN FRANCISCO—Programmable logic vendor Altera Corp. Tuesday (Oct. 19) reported third quarter sales that exceeded expectations as the company turned in record revenue for the third consecutive quarter.

Altera (San Jose, Calif.) reported sales of $527.5 million, up 12 percent compared with the previous quarter and up 84 percent from the third quarter of 2009. The company recorded a net income for the quarter of $217.5 million, or 69 cents per diluted share, up 20 percent from the second quarter and up 284 percent compared to the third quarter of 2009.

Consensus analyst expectations had called for Altera to report sales of about $526 million, according to Yahoo Finance.

New product sales increased 24 percent sequentially in the third quarter, Altera said.

"The combination of a step up in telecom and wireless demand and stellar new product growth created another quarter of double-digit sales gains for Altera," said John Daane, Altera's president, chairman and CEO, in a statement.

Daane said Altera saw 53 percent sequential growth in 40-nm FPGAs. "We are in the final stages of development for our initial 28-nm FPGAs and believe that the unique architectural features and performance we offer will extend our current 40-nm technology leadership to this next process node," Daane said.

Altera said it expects sales for the fourth quarter to increase 3 to 6 percent compared with the third quarter. 

Altera's board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 6 cents per share payable on Dec. 1 to stockholders of record on Nov. 10.