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On Wednesday the company's fourth quarter results showed that total gross margin grew a further two basis points sequentially to 75 percent, and its reported net loss dropped to USD8.1 million from USD18.4 million in the third quarter. Net losses for the year were USD34.7 million compared to USD16.0 million reported in 2000.
During the fourth quarter licensing and royalty revenue, a closely watched figure for the company, grew just six percent during the quarter but 87 percent during the full year to USD8.7 million. Total revenue was slightly up during the quarter to USD10.5 million and rose more than a quarter during the year to USD40.9 million.
"Unquestionably near term market conditions in the semiconductor industry remain challenging," chief executive officer Brian Long said in a statement. "Notwithstanding, we have a strong sales pipeline, illustrating the continued demand for our technology." Long reiterated that Parthus was on track to breakeven by mid 2002 and attain profitability in the second half of the year.
Dublin-based Parthus operates at the high end of the embattled semiconductor sector, designing and licensing advanced systems to makers of semiconductors, mobile phones and handheld computers globally.
Also on Wednesday Parthus made its first announcement of a licensee for its MachStream product, Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas. MachStream is a so-called acceleration technology that enables multimedia applications to run faster and consume less power on handheld devices. Long told ElectricNews.Net the company has also secured its first customer for the inclusion of GPS technology in a handset, and the announcement of that customer is expected in the coming weeks.
But despite the good year-on-year revenue and royalty gains for the company, the figures published Wednesday also showed an overall slowing of growth for Parthus. During the quarter total revenue was virtually flat compared to the third quarter, rising just USD52,000 or less than half of one percent. This included a slowdown in its growth in IP licensing and royalty revenue, which rose 15 percent between quarters two and three, but rose just six percent between the third and fourth quarter.
Parthus suffered in part because the customers who license its technology shipped fewer units during the quarter, resulting in fewer royalties for the company. Royalty revenue showed worse declines than during the third quarter, falling 14 percent during Q4 compared to a drop of just four percent during Q3. So-called "hard IP" revenue volumes plummeted 40 percent compared to the third quarter.
The company did manage to cut its cost base during the quarter, thanks in part to a round of job cuts in December and an ongoing pay freeze, which Long told ElectricNews.Net will stay in place until external environmental conditions improve. On Wednesday Parthus said that it had taken a restructuring charge of USD765,000 in the fourth quarter. The company has cut its headcount from 428 in October to 389, a reduction of around nine percent.
Long said Parthus' outlook for the semiconductor sector was roughly the same as that iterated by industry peers. "STMicro and Infineon have both said the next two quarters were going to be lacking in visibility, and that is how we view it too," he told ElectricNews.Net.
Long also said Parthus now had USD123 million cash on hand, some USD4 million less than at the end of the third quarter.
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