Linear Technology Up on Raising Estimates

Shares of Linear Technology Corp. (NASDAQ: LLTC) are rallying over 8.0% in morning trade after the company reported slightly better than expected quarterly profits and revenues. Additionally the company also raised estimates for its up coming quarter.

The company reported quarterly revenue fell 23%, year over year, to $294.3 million slightly exceeding analyst estimates of $293.1 million. Net profit came in at 39 cents a share down about 39% from year ago levels. This was in line with analyst forecasts of 39 cents a share.

The company also said strong bookings in the last 2 months would help it increase sales estimates for the up coming quarter. It expects revenue for the current quarter to be in a range of $306 million to $318 million. That is well above the Street consensus of $301.5 million. The company also approved an increase in its dividend.

According to Lothar Maier, CEO, “This was an encouraging quarter in a difficult global economic environment. We met the mid point of our guidance and we believe that we are at an inflection point in our business. Bookings, which started slowly, strengthened in December and continued strengthening in January. In these challenging times we maintained strong profitability, reporting operating margins at 45% of sales”.

“Given the improvement in our bookings and our current outlook for the March quarter, we are estimating that we will grow quarterly revenues sequentially in the 4% to 8% range for our fiscal third quarter. As we announced earlier, we have acquired Dust Networks, a leading provider of wireless sensor networks. Although Dust will initially have minimal impact on our quarterly financial results, we are optimistic about growth prospects for Dust in its emerging markets and the synergies between Dust and Linear in bringing rugged, low power, wireless solutions to the industrial and other end-markets.” He added.