July 5, 2007 – Two months after noting slowing growth in each fiscal quarter in its fiscal 2007 (though >40% sales growth for the year), silicon-on-insulator (SOI) supplier Soitec has softened its optimism about its current fiscal year, now citing “uncertainty” about customer product ramps later this year.

Taking into account a sequential recovery in 2Q07, the company now anticipates that fiscal 1H08 “will be below the previous year by around 15%” (or 20% at current US dollar exchange rates), and that full-year sales may be below the prior year as well (fiscal 2007 sales were about 372.0 million euros). New products from main customers are slated to come onstream later this year, but there is “current uncertainty with regard to the timing of the ramp up in volume of these products,” Soitec stated. Plus, a weak US dollar exchange rate “will significantly impact this year’s margins particularly in the first six months,” the company noted.

Soitec added that it anticipates bringing its new plant in Singapore online will help reduce costs.