ST finishes 2019 with $9.5B in sales, 1% below year earlier

STMicroelectronics finished 2019 with “solid” fourth quarter sales and net revenues at $2.75 billion, a 4% increase over a year earlier, according to CEO Jean-Marc Chery in a Thursday earnings call from Geneva.

Its share price jumped by 5% in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange, reaching $29.82 shortly after the market opened.

Chery predicted a 13.7% increase in first quarter 2020 year-over-year revenues, reaching $2.36 billion. Revenues for the full year of 2019 reached $9.5 billion, which was actually a decline by 1% over 2018. Net income for all of 2019 was just over $1 billion.

The company’s biggest revenue producer in the fourth quarter was for analog, MEMS and sensors, reaching just over $1 billion, while automotive was a close second at $924 million, and microcontrollers and digital integrated circuits were at $742 million. Profits in the analog group increased by 39%, but profits decreased in the auto group by nearly 20%.  

STMicroelectronics closed its acquisition of Norstel for $137 million. Norstel was a Swedish silicon carbide wafer manufacturer.

The company, commonly called ST and founded in 1987, is Europe’s largest semiconductor chipmaker by revenues. It employs about 45,000 workers and is based in Geneva. Customers in the Americas comprised 38% of sales in 2019, the largest geography for sales.

At CES 2020 in Las Vegas, ST showcased 55 new and future components including a transceiver that uses a 2.5 Gbps wireless data link across a gap between video wall panels.

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