Texas Instruments reported a sharp fall in fourth-quarter profits, hurt by charges for its takeover of National Semiconductor and the shutdown of two older production sites. Net profit fell 68 percent from a year earlier to USD 298 million or USD 0.25 per share. That includes USD 256 million in charges for the takeover closed in September and USD 112 million for shutting down sites in Texas and Japan, which will result in about 1,000 job losses. Revenue fell just 3 percent year-on-year and 1 percent from Q3 to USD 3.42 billion. TI said this was better than expected, and underlines its belief that the market has reached the bottom of the latest downturn. Wireless revenues fell 6 percent from a year earlier but were up 24 percent sequentially to USD 722 million. Analog rose 12 percent year-on-year and 9 percent from Q3 to USD 1.70 billion, while Embedded processing sales were down 18 percent over both period to USD 442 million. The company's orders were down 9 percent year-on-year and 7 percent from Q3 to USD 2.86 billion. For the first quarter, TI forecast revenue of USD 3.02-3.28 billion and EPS of USD 0.16-0.24, including about USD 0.10 in acquisition and restructuring charges. Baseband revenue is expected to decline from USD 279 million in the fourth quarter to about USD 75 million in the first quarter, and range from USD 50-100 million in each remaining quarter of 2012 as TI exits the business.
