Andrew Corporation has reported total sales of $503 million and a net loss of $2.0 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2007. The company had a list of reasons for the loss, and also plans to sell its satellite business – responsible for 6% of overall revenues.
Although wireless infrastructure sales increased 5%, the company blamed “continued challenges in the North American market” and start-up costs associated with a new facility as well as higher income taxes for the loss in the quarter, which compared to net income for the prior year’s second quarter of $3.6 million.
“The first half of our fiscal year has been challenging due to consolidation issues with two significant North American customers, volatile commodity costs and a number of important facility start-ups and relocations,” said Ralph Faison, president and chief executive officer, Andrew Corporation.
Wireless infrastructure sales increased 5% to $472 million, compared with the previous year’s second quarter due to strong demand for antenna and cable products, a note from the vendor said. This included the acquisitions of Precision Antennas and EMS Wireless, the implementation of price increases on cable products and a favorable foreign exchange impact, which were partially offset by weaker sales of base station components.
Base Station Subsystems sales decreased 33% versus the prior year second quarter due primarily to weakness in base station component sales to certain OEM customers who were in the process of consolidating and a decline in sales to certain North American operators. The top 25 customers represented 70% of sales compared to 69% in the prior quarter and 67% in the prior year second quarter.
Major OEMs accounted for 41% of sales compared to 41% in the prior quarter and 38% in the prior year second quarter. Ericsson represented more than 10% of the company’s sales for the quarter and Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, Siemens and Sprint Nextel each represented more than 5% of the company’s sales for the quarter.
EMEA sales increased 22% from the prior year, with antenna and cable products up 20% versus the prior year second quarter due mainly to cable price increases, strong demand in EMEA and Asia Pacific across most product lines, and the impact from the acquisitions of Precision Antennas and EMS Wireless.
• Andrew has introduced a coverage solution for analogue 450 megahertz networks converting to Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)-450 and FLASH-OFDM protocols that it claims can provide capital cost savings of as much as 40 percent.
The Andrew Node C repeater for CDMA-450 and FLASH-OFDM is designed for operators who are converting networks from legacy analogue protocols to the two newer digital standards, as well as for new carriers considering the 450MHz standards.