Telecoms equipment vendors still in the mire

Despite seeing its own sales hit a low point in the third quarter of last year, chips supplier Texas Instruments (TI) has said the telecoms equipment market will only hit its nadir this quarter.

TI sells components to equipment manufacturing giants including Cisco, Lucent and Nortel, who will be the last of its customers to recover, according to TI CFO William Aylesworth.

"[They] were most severely hit by the downturn. Demand for our premium analogue products in wireless base stations and wireline infrastructure have not hit bottom. They were down sequentially by about 15 per cent in the fourth quarter and will be down slightly this quarter," he said, speaking to the FT.

However, TI's wireless and PC businesses remain stronger.