Texas Instruments Predicts Sales Topping Some Analyst Estimates

Texas Instruments, seeking to turn investor attention back to its performance after dismissing its CEO last week, predicted third-quarter sales and earnings that may top some analysts’ estimates, according to Bloomberg.

Profit will be $1.41 to $1.63 a share in the current period, the company said in a statement. Revenue will be $4.11 billion to $4.45 billion. On average, analysts predicted earnings of $1.48 a share on sales of $4.25 billion.

The world’s fifth-largest chipmaker has tens of thousands of products and thousands of customers spanning home electronics to the space industry. That makes it, more than any of its rivals, a proxy for demand across the economy.

The company, like many chipmakers, has benefited from the increasing amount of electronic functions in vehicles. That source of growth may be waning as automakers worry about demand amid an escalating trade war between China and the U.S.

Last week, when it announced Crutcher’s departure, the company said second-quarter revenue rose to $4.02 billion, up 9 percent from a year earlier. Profit was $1.40 a share, including a 3-cent per-share tax benefit.

Texas Instruments gets the biggest chunk of its sales from makers of industrial equipment. It’s also one of the biggest providers of silicon to the automotive industry. Unlike Intel and Qualcomm, it doesn’t make chips that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop and then quickly become obsolete, making it less vulnerable to sudden swings in demand or competitive pressure.