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Needham & Company Maintains a 'Hold' on Atmel (ATML); Uncertainty Around maxTouch Growth

February 9, 2012 10:38 AM EST
ATML Hot Sheet
Rating Summary:
    12 Buy, 4 Hold, 0 Sell

Rating Trend: = Flat

Today's Overall Ratings:
    Up: 20 | Down: 11 | New: 38
Needham & Company maintains a 'Hold' on Atmel (NASDAQ: ATML).

Analyst, Rajvindra S. Gill, said, "We maintain our Hold rating following 1Q12 guidance that was 7% or ~$30MM below consensus. Following a negative 4Q11 preannouncement, ATML continues to see declines in its maxTouch segment in 1Q and in non-volatile memory and ASIC. While ATML believes maxTouch sales for 2012 can exceed that of 2011 (albeit it did not specify how much), we find it will be difficult to grow for two fundamental reasons: 1) sharp ASP declines on the smartphone side due to the mix shift to the low-end handset market and competitive pricing on the high-end; and 2) the significant inventory correction in 1Q and transition to single-chip leading to lower dollar content per device on the tablet side. In order for us to be more constructive on the stock, we need to see if ATML can offset the ASP pressure with more volume on smartphones and evidence of higher adoption rate of Win 8 tablets than what is built in our forecast. We continue to see $9 or below as an attractive entry point."

"Our 2012/2013 ests move to $1.73BN/$0.70 (vs. $1.79BN/$0.68) and $1.90BN/$0.90 (vs. $1.96BN/$0.95), respectively."


For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Atmel click here. For more ratings news on Atmel click here.

Shares of Atmel closed at $10.10 yesterday, with a 52 week range of $7.36-$16.80.


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