Analog, MEMS Drag On ST's Results

By Peter Clarke, May. 06, 2016 – 

This was reflected in the company's first quarter financial results in which the company made a net loss of $41 million on revenues of $1.61 billion. The quarterly sales were down 5.4 percent year-on-year. Despite rumors that Carlo Bozotti's tenure as CEO of ST could soon come to and end the executive declined to discuss this in a conference call with analysts set up on the topic of the financial results.

For several years ST suffered losses as it struggled to disentangle itself from the failed mobile phone chip joint venture ST-Ericsson. During that time the analog and MEMS business unit was spark of hope for ST as it achieved design wins for inertial sensors in smartphones and enjoyed the booming market. In recent quarters however, its MEMS business has been in decline as ST lost some of those design slots and MEMS in consumer applications has became increasingly commoditized and pricing was eroded. At the same time the last couple of quarters have seen softness in a smartphone market that seems to have largely satuarated its market.

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