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NEW YORK — Texas Instruments Inc. on Monday posted fourth-quarter results that narrowly topped forecasts, and the chipmaker said it is now past a "short and shallow downturn" that hit in the second half of last year.
The company said it earned $942 million, or 78 cents per share, in the October to December period.
That included 14 cents per share in one-time gains from the sale of a product line and a tax benefit. Excluding those effects, earnings beat the average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet by 1 cent per share.
In the same period last year, TI earned $655 million, or 52 cents per share.
Revenue rose 17 percent to $3.53 billion, beating the analyst forecast of $3.51 billion.
For much of last year, TI's results reflected the company's rebound from the recession. Then, in October, the company warned that the market was weakening, and that its outlook for this year was cautious. Demand for chips for laptop computers, hard disk drives and televisions started to look poor, while chips for video games and smart phones stayed in strong demand.
But on Monday, CEO Rich Templeton said the fall's downturn now looks "mostly complete." The company used it to replenish its inventories and return product lead-times to normal, he said.
TI projected a revenue range for the first quarter — $3.27 billion to $3.55 billion — that stretches well above the average analyst forecast at $3.34 billion. It expects net income of 54 cents to 62 cents per share, straddling the analyst forecast at 58 cents.
TI shares fell 91 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $33.74 in extended trading Monday, after rising 74 cents in regular trading. The stock is close to a two-year high of $34.86 set a week ago.
TI chips go into nearly all types of electronics, handling tasks like regulating and convert electric power, processing audio, communicating with hard drives and creating Wi-Fi and cellular connections.
TI's head of investor relations, Ron Slaymaker, said the company is well positioned to benefit from the new craze for tablet computers in the style of Apple Inc.'s iPad, which are starting to eat into PC sales.
TI can supply power management, processing and wireless chips worth $30 for each tablet. The processor alone is worth about $15. TI doesn't make PC processors, so if tablets grow at the expense of PCs, that's good for the company.
"The net difference between that PC opportunity and a tablet really represents a very significant opportunity for TI," Slaymaker said.
As usual, TI's best sellers were analog chips, which are used in phones and other electronics to regulate power and convert sound into electric pulses. Revenue from that division was up 20 percent from a year ago to $1.52 billion.
Sales of embedded processors, used in communications networks, car electronics and many other applications, grew 31 percent to $538 million.
TI, which is based in Dallas, has stopped investing in what was once a large business of making "baseband" chips for cell phones, which handle communications with cell towers. Its wireless business now focuses on processors and chips that handle functions like GPS navigation and Wi-Fi connections. That business saw a 1 percent revenue increase, to $767 million.
For the full year, Texas Instruments posted net income of $3.23 billion, or $2.62 per share, on $13.97 billion in revenue. That was up from 2009 earnings of $1.47 billion, or $1.15 per share, on $10.43 billion in revenue.
