Applied Materials In the Chips Thanks to Mobile: CEO
Special to CNBC.com
Applied Materials CEO Michael Splinter is thankful for the explosion in tablets, smartphones and other mobile technology because that goes right to his company's bottom line.
He told CNBC Thursday the company expects a 5 percent to 15 percent boost in second-quarter revenue thanks to an increase in orders. He expects earnings "to certainly be up in line with that."
"We make the manufacturing equipment for all those chips that go into these devices" including tablet computers and smartphones, he said. "The great thing is those chips are getting bigger and more complex. That’s an excellent thing for Applied Materials."
In addition the displays on these devices are getting better and "almost all those displays are made on Applied Materials equipment," he said.
Personal computers "need a bit of a renewal," and he thinks that will come from newer, sleeker, laptops with touch technology.
"The Ultra Book is quite a device. We’ve seen the new laptop PCs that are thin and have great battery life," he said. As Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system "comes out and the touch capability is present, it’s going to give incentive for buyers to get back into buying PCs."
Splinter said the global economy "is still coming along slowly. Our business has been improving since the fall…So I think if we saw a bit more of an upturn in the global economy it would accelerate that" company growth.
