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Micron swings to loss as sales drop

*HUGE earnings miss here folks...

Micron swings to loss as sales drop
By John Shinal, MarketWatch
Last Update: 7:35 PM ET June 23, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Micron Technology Inc. said late Thursday that it swung to a fiscal third-quarter loss, as the computer-memory chipmaker saw sales and prices for its products plunge.

Micron (MU: news, chart, profile) said it had a loss of $127.9 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with a profit of $90.9 million or 13 cents a share a year ago.

Sales for the quarter ended June 2 fell slightly to $1.05 billion from $1.12 billion.

The results fell short of the expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, who expected Micron to post a profit of 2 cents a share on sales of $1.19 billion.

Company executives said on a conference call that average sale prices for its key memory chips fell by a third, compared with the fiscal second quarter. The price drop more than offset a 6% rise in unit shipments for those products.

Micron shares fell nearly 4 percent to $10.40 in late trading after the results were released. The stock closed up 2% at $10.83.


LINK: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&gui...