Camtek Ltd (CAMT)

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Camtek Ltd. Announces 2005 Third Quarter Results
Tuesday November 22, 5:03 am ET
Continued Strong Growth in Semiconductor Equipment Business
Camtek Introduces Revenue Guidance for 2006


MIGDAL HAEMEK, Israel, November 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Camtek Ltd. (NASDAQ: CAMT - News), today announced results for the third quarter of 2005, which ended on September 30. The company also released initial guidance for the year 2006.

Revenues for the third quarter of 2005 were $17.7 million, 8% below $19.3 million in the third quarter of 2004, and up sequentially 5.8% from $16.8 million reported in the second quarter of 2005. Revenue guidance issued for the quarter was between $16-18 million. The revenue breakdown in the third quarter of 2005 between the sales of PCB, HDI-S and Semiconductor Manufacturing and Packaging products was 53%, 19% and 28%, respectively.

Gross profit for the third quarter of 2005 was $8.5 million, representing a gross margin of 48.2%. This is compared with $10.6 million, or gross margin of 54.8%, as reported in the third quarter of 2004 and $8.3 million, or gross margin of 49.7%, as reported in the previous quarter.

Operating profit for the third quarter of 2005 was $1.5 million representing an operating margin of 8.5%. This compares with $3.5 million or an operating margin of 18.3% as reported in the third quarter of 2004 and $1.4 million or an operating margin of 8.6% as reported in the previous quarter.

The company reported third quarter net income of $1.5 million, or $0.06 per share, compared to net income of $3.3 million, or $0.12 per share, in the third quarter of 2004, and $1.5 million, or $0.05 per share, in the second quarter of 2005. The third quarter 2004 results include a one-time charge of $1.1 million for the discontinued plan for a secondary public offering.

Rafi Amit, Camtek's CEO commented, : "We are pleased with our revenues, coming in at the upper end of our expectations. We are particularly proud of our performance in the semiconductor business, having grown by over 25% from the previous quarter. This strong growth reflects the competitive and technological advantages of the Falcon, as well as the continuing implementation of our strategy, which aims to become a major player in the semiconductor inspection arena. The growth in our semiconductor revenue more than offsets the decline in revenues of PCB inspection products."

Mr. Amit continued, "We recently introduced new models of the Falcon which have fed into our increasingly growing order pipeline. The Falcon has been qualified for a number of different applications by some major integrated device manufacturers and wafer foundries. We continue to win side-by-side evaluations against competitors and our orders have included repeat and multiple orders, which are evidence of the customer's perception of the quality and the value of this product line. We believe that the sale of current and future Falcon models will continue on its growth trend in 2006, eventually contributing a greater portion of our revenues than our PCB inspection systems. In the next quarter, we expect total revenues of between US$18-20 million, with continued strong growth from the Falcon."

Mr. Amit concluded, "We believe 2006 PCB sector revenues will remain at around the same level as those of 2005. However, given our significantly strengthening pipeline of Falcon orders and evaluation requests for the next six months, and assuming an unchanged trend in the global semiconductor market, we forecast 2006 Falcon sales growing by 100-150% over 2005. Thus based on these assumptions, we expect total revenues for 2006 to be in the range of US$85-95 million, representing year-on-year growth of between 35-55%."

Camtek will hold a conference call today, Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 11:00 a.m. EST. Moshe Amit, Chief Financial Officer, and Yuval Attias, Controller, will host the call and will be available to answer questions after presenting the results.


To participate, please call one of the following telephone numbers below:
US: 1 866 860 9642 at 11:00 a.m. EST
UK: 0 800 917 5108 at 4:00 p.m. GMT
Israel: 03 918 0610 at 6:00 p.m. Israel time
International: [phone]
The teleconference will be available for replay for 14 days on http://www.camtek.co.il/beginning 48 hours after the call.

ABOUT CAMTEK LTD.

Camtek Ltd. designs, develops, manufactures, and markets technologically advanced and cost-effective intelligent optical inspection systems and related software products, used to enhance processes and yields for the printed circuit boards, semiconductor manufacturing and semiconductor packaging industries. Camtek has been a public company since 2000, with headquarters in Migdal HaEmek, Israel and subsidiaries in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and East Asia. See also www.camtek.co.il.

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