SAN JOSE -- Sanmina's PCB fabrication and backplanes unit recorded $388 million in sales in the quarter ended Sept. 27, down 0.8% from the previous quarter. 

The unit's gross margin fell 70 basis points sequentially to 10.3% on lower profitability in the components areas, partially offset by better profitability in product and services.

The Components, Products and Services unit is wide-reaching. The Components segment includes printed circuit board, fabrication, backplane assemblies, cable assemblies, enclosures, precision machining and plastic injection molding. The Products group includes computing and storage products, defense and aerospace products, memory and solid state drive modules; and optical and RF modules. Services includes design and engineering as well as logistics and repair services.

EMS makes up the bulk of Sanmina's revenues, at about 80% of overall sales in the just-ended quarter.

Most of the company's end-markets grew in the quarter: Communication networks was up 3.6%; Industrial, Medical and Defense was up 7.3% overall, with strong gains in industrial making up for a slight drop in defense; Computing and Storage grew 8.9%; and Multimedia was flat. For the December quarter, Sanmina sees flat growth ahead for communications and defense, good demand for industrial, stable demand for medical, a slight rebound for computing and storage, and a slight drop for multimedia.

The company, which has made a pair of acquisitions totaling about $94 million over the past 12 months, says it will continue to add businesses that fit with its current strategy. 

"We really are looking for assets that make sense for our strategy," said chief financial officer Bob Eulau. "We are not that interested in a consolidation as we are frankly not convinced it makes a lot of sense. It’s really a matter of executing our strategy and finding opportunities with that.

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