Shares of Anaheim’s Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc., a maker of flexible printed circuit boards for cell phones and other mobile devices, slumped after the company gave an outlook for the current quarter that fell short of Wall Street’s revenue projections.
Investors sent the stock down nearly 7% in afterhours trading on a recent market value of about $625 million.
Multi-Fineline said it’s expecting December-quarter sales of $225 million to $245 million, up 2% a year earlier but short of the $251 million in sales analysts had been expecting.
The company didn’t give a profit outlook. It said it’s expecting its gross margin to come in at 13% to 15%, roughly in line with what it was in the September quarter.
Analysts, on average, are expecting Multi-Fineline to see adjusted profits of $15 million, down about 6% from a year earlier.
Despite falling short of Wall Street’s expectations, Chief Executive Reza Meshgin was upbeat about the current quarter.
“We expect another strong net sales performance during the first quarter of fiscal 2011 given recent program wins and the seasonal demand we traditionally experience heading into the holiday season,” he said.
The outlook came on the heels of Multi-Fineline’s results for the September quarter, which beat analysts’ profit expectations and fell short on sales.
M-Flex, as the company is known, reported sales of $227 million, up 14% and just shy of analysts’ expectation of $228 million in revenues.
Excluding charges for write-downs on assets, restructuring and other onetime costs, M-Flex posted profits of about $12 million, up 7% and beating analysts’ expectation of $11 million in profits.
M-Flex makes circuit boards that get built into cell phones, smart phones and other mobile devices.
Its customers include Apple Inc. and Research in Motion Ltd., maker of Blackberry.
