Cree Profit Meets Estimate; Revenue Misses; Outlook Weak

(RTTNews) - LED products maker Cree Inc. (CREE) said Tuesday that its fourth quarter profit more than doubled from last year, helped by higher revenue and improved margins.

The company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, came in line with analysts' expectations, but its quarterly revenue fell shy of analysts' forecast.

At the same time, the Durham, North Carolina-based company gave a downbeat forecast for the current quarter.

Cree shares are currently losing 16.17% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $75.76, up $1.01 or 1.35%. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $24.50 to $76.00. For the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2013, the company reported net income of $28.2 million or $0.23 per share, compared to $10.0 million or $0.09 per share for the year-ago quarter.

Excluding items, adjusted net income for the fourth quarter was $45.6 million or $0.38 per share, compared to $29.2 million or $0.25 per share in the prior year quarter.

On average, 21 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.38 per share for the fourth quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Gross margin for the quarter improved to 37.5% from 34.8% a year ago, while operating margin increased to 8.2% from 2.8% last year.

Adjusted gross margin improved to 38.2% from 36.3% a year ago, while adjusted operating margin increased to 13.7% from 9.8% last year.

Net revenue for the fourth quarter rose 22% to $375.01 million from $306.76 million in the same quarter last year. Twenty analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $377.21 million for the fourth quarter.

LED products revenue rose 17% to $217.4 million, while lighting products sales surged 33% to $133.6 million. Power and RF products revenues increased 14$ to $24.0 million.

Looking forward to the first quarter, the company forecasts revenue of $380 million to $400 million, earnings of $0.23 to $0.28 per share and adjusted earnings of $0.36 to $0.41 per share. Analysts currently expect the company to earn $0.43 per share on revenue of $398.39 million for the first quarter.