Recently, Cree Inc. has announced revenue of $493.3M for FY08, representing a 25% increase over FY 07, citing XLamp sales growth and increasing demand for HB-LEDs as major drivers.
Cree’s product families include recessed LED down lights, lighting-class power LEDs, high-brightness LEDs, blue and green LED chips, power-switching devices and radio-frequency/wireless devices. The revenue of $135.9M for its fiscal 4Q08 ended June 29, 2008, this represents a 9% increase compared to the fiscal 3Q08 and a 22% increase compared to revenue of $111.2M reported for the fourth fiscal quarter last year. GAAP net income for 4Q was $8.4M, or $0.09 per diluted share, compared to net income of $6.4M or $0.08 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007.
Double-digit growth in Cree's XLamps and an increase in orders for high-brightness LEDs are due to the increasing demand in video screen production for China. The demand for the XLamp has been driven by a combination of portable architectural lighting and vehicle lighting, but general lighting--indoor, outdoor, commercial--has been growing the fastest over the past couple of quarters.
Chuck Swoboda, Cree CEO and chairman, said that revenue exceeded our previously announced guidance due to strong LED sales, which grew 11% sequentially and 27% from a year ago, Q4 represented a strong finish to a very successful year, the overall LED component revenue for the quarter was ~30% higher than LED chip revenue that quarter. Over the past year, they have made a transition from an LED chip company driven by mobile phone market trends to a broad-based LED company with chips, components and system.
