Even with a fire crippling one of its PCB facilities in China, Viasystems managed to show some positive numbers for their fourth quarter.
Highlights
Estimated net sales were USD 273.6 million in the quarter ended December 31, 2012, a year-over-year increase of 1.7%, and a sequential decrease from the immediately preceding quarter of 16.4%.
Giving pro forma effect to the May 2012 acquisition of DDi Corp., estimated net sales declined 18.0% year-over-year.
Significant progress in restoring China printed circuit board production after fire.
“Typical yearend seasonal decline in demand was exaggerated in our fourth quarter by a couple of factors,” stated David M. Sindelar, the company’s chief executive officer. “First, while we have made progress in restoring full operations following a fire in one of our Printed Circuit Boards segment factories in China in September, our recovery was not completed until January 2013. Second, unrelated to the fire and as we anticipated, demand for our wind energy products dropped steeply in our Assembly segment. I believe that incoming orders during the quarter were also adversely affected by these factors as our bookings were at parity with our estimated net sales in the quarter.”
Estimated net sales of the company’s Printed Circuit Boards segment for the fourth quarter of 2012 were USD 236.8 million, compared with Printed Circuit Boards segment net sales of USD 224.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2011 and compared with Printed Circuit Board segment net sales of USD 269.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2012.
Estimated net sales of the company’s Assembly segment for the fourth quarter of 2012 were USD 36.8 million, compared with Assembly segment net sales of USD 45.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2011 and compared with Assembly segment net sales of USD 57.9 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2012.
“Despite reduced sales and production levels in our fourth quarter, we estimate that we were successful in managing our costs to stabilize our gross margins as a percent of sales at a level consistent with our third quarter result,” concluded Sindelar. “We expect sales to recover in the first half of 2013 as the production and related orders come back online. We will provide further commentary on this during our full earnings release next month.”
