Melexis Q3 2009 results

Intermediate declaration by the Board of Directors
Ieper, Belgium – October 22nd, 2009 at 07.00 hrs CET

Revenues for the third quarter were 35.9 million EUR, a decrease of 26% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and an increase of 27% versus the previous quarter.
Gross margin was 13.9 million EUR, a decrease of 34% compared to the same quarter last year and an increase of 44% versus the previous quarter.
R&D expenses were 18% of sales, Selling was 3% of sales and G&A was at 6% of sales.
The operating result was at 3.4 million EUR, compared to 10 million EUR in the same quarter the previous year and -0.6 million EUR in the previous quarter.
The financial result amounted to a loss of 1.6 million EUR of which ca. 0.9 million EUR relate to borrowing costs. The financial result was also negatively impacted by unrealized exchange rate differences and changes in market value.
Net profit was 1.4 million EUR, 3 cent per share, down from 20 cent per share in the third quarter of 2008. In the previous quarter net profit was -18 cent per share.
For the remaining 7.5 mio euro of debt, Melexis expects to reach a similar agreement in the next days.

Outlook

Melexis expects 40 million EUR sales in the fourth quarter 2009. Melexis expects to grow minimum 25% in sales in 2010, assuming a EUR/USD rate of 1.45.

Rudi De Winter, CEO of Melexis comments:
“The most recent International Car show in Frankfurt showed clearly that the number one priority for most car manufactures is to make their models environmentally friendly. To reach this goal, emission reduction concepts and systems are applied. Melexis is supporting most of these with its sensors and actuator ICs. These technological systems will not be limited to the luxury segment, but will definitely be used on a broad basis to lower emissions globally. Melexis’ capability to deliver the next generation of integration will help to make these emission reduction systems available in future low budget cars."

Françoise Chombar, CEO of Melexis comments:
"Events since our press release in April have moved in the direction we expected. Our indications about the inventory accelerator effect (Press Release of April 23, 2009) could have been called prophetic if they weren't just plain common sense, based on facts and figures rather than emotions and panic. After customers have allowed their inventories to bottom out to a sometimes dangerously risky level and as at the same time many of them have waited too long for placing their orders, we are now living a period of overheated ordering behavior. Melexis took the right decision from the start, namely to keep the supply chain running at a higher pace than our customers' orders and forecasts, though only for those products which corresponded to the right safe criteria we had defined already in October 2008. This pro-active stand of Melexis is now helping out an important number of our customers and is hence beneficial to Melexis in many ways."

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