Xilinx forecasts first-quarter revenue below estimates and refrained from providing an annual outlook, citing the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
The pandemic has negatively impacted the global semiconductor industry, with lockdown orders interrupting operations and supply chains, even though many plants were eventually allowed to remain open.
Xilinx CEO Victor Peng told Reuters that the company had a stronger than historical backlog of orders.
“We’re trying to be as transparent as we can be and be neither overly pessimistic nor overly optimistic. We just felt like to go from usually providing full-year guidance to just zero (guidance) may have been interpreted as quite bad, so we didn’t want to do that,” Peng said.
Xilinx started seeing coronavirus-related demand weakness halfway through the quarter, with its automotive business impacted the most as car sales declined significantly in China and globally.
The San Jose, California-based firm, which also makes chips used in 5G telecommunications base stations, has been prevented by U.S. authorities from shipping some products to Huawei Technologies.
Peng said other 5G equipment makers were expected to resume rolling out networks in China later this year and that networks in North America and Europe would still come online over the next few years despite the pandemic.
Xilinx said it expects first-quarter revenue between $660 million and $720 million. The company posted revenue of $849.6 million in the same period last year.
