Veeco exceeds expectations despite poor AFM sales

Revenues rose to $114.4m, up 16 per cent compared to the $98.8m recorded during the same period in the prior year.

Operating income for the quarter rose to $6.2m, from a loss of $1.0m recorded during the second quarter of 2007. Net income also rose from a loss of $2.6m last year to a profit of $4.2m.

Research and Development expenditure remained flat at $15.1m, accounting for around 13 per cent of the company’s revenues.

John Peeler, Veeco’s CEO, said he was proud of the progress the company had made since he joined the company just over a year ago, although stressed that there is still a lot more to do to create a more profitable and higher growth company.

“To drive Veeco’s growth we’ve focused our resources and efforts on high growth opportunities where we provide compelling technology and benefits to our customers, we’ve also made solid progress in strengthening our sales channel with new leadership, improved account management and additional resources in key regions such as Asia, Pacific and China,”​ said Peeler.

“We’ve taken steps to reduce our manufacturing costs and these efforts have focused on creating the right combination of internal manufacturing and outsourcing strategies, in addition we began significant programmes focused on improving our global sourcing and materials and on logistics management.”​

While second quarter revenues from the firm’s LED and Solar Process Equipment rose 61 per cent compared to the prior year to $45.1m and Data Storage Process Equipment revenues increased by 15 per cent to $36.7m the company was hit by a drop in sales to its metrology unit.

“Metrology revenue was $32.6m, down 16 per cent compared to prior year and 10 per cent sequentially, primarily due to continued weak semiconductor and research end market conditions,"​ said Peeler​​

However he was keen to stress that Veeco’s metrology is its only business unit with “significant exposure to the semiconductor market, which is experiencing extremely low revenue and bookings levels.”​

Peeler also highlighted that Veeco’s Optical and Nano-Bio instruments businesses “are having a challenging year given the overall macro economic conditions and slow research and scientific spending.​“

“In our Nano-Bio AFM business we’ve launched Harmonics during the second quarter and booked multiple systems. We also booked over 20 Anova systems one of the best product introductions in several years,”​ said Peeler.