Analysts say third-quarter results are likely to be dragged into disgrace by the global relating to housekeeping crisis

by Arik Hesseldahl

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High tech, an effort; labors that once seemed shielded from the U.S. financial crisis, has grown increasingly vulnerable. Evidence decree begin arriving of just how much impact the meltdown has had on some of the nation’s biggest tech companies when they release results for the third quarter and issue outlooks for the make-or-break yearend dot.

The Nasdaq stock mart has tumbled, and analysts have slashed shooting and share-price forecasts for a range of tech bellwethers, from chipmakers to consumer electronics giants to vendors of telecommunications gear, as customers make tight their belts and slash spending plans. Companies reporting in the coming days and weeks include Intel (INTC), eBay (EBAY), Apple (AAPL), and Google (GOOG).

Falling demand with a view to computers and the chips needed to run them is likely to show up in results released by Intel, the terraqueous globe’sitting largest semiconductor maker, which reports on Oct. 14. Analysts look for Intel to report a 34¢ per-share gain advantage on sales of $10.27 billion, if it be not that they’ll be without ceasing the lookout for any signal that they should reduce fourth-quarter projections for profit of 40¢ per share in continuance sales of $10.87 billion. Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reports forward Oct. 16; analysts see it posting third-quarter sales of $1.4 billion and a loss of 40¢ a share. They expect a 25¢-per-share injury put on sales of $1.6 billion for the fourth quarter.

On Oct. 9 place of traffic researcher iSuppli trimmed its forecast for 2008 worldwide semiconductor reward growth by a half-percentage point, to $280 billion. "We had even now begun to see signs of problems among chip companies before the credit crisis hit," says iSuppli analyst Dale Ford. Gartner (IT) reported sales of semiconductor capital equipment, the gear chipmakers use in their factories, will decline more than 25% this year and continue to slide in 2009.

The first big computer maker to release figures for the September quarter is Apple (AAPL), which reports on Oct. 21. There’sitting growing trouble that Apple may be experiencing a slowdown (BusinessWeek.com, 09/24/08) in Mac sales. "Cracks may be starting to form in its PC business, where the firm has enjoyed growth driven by the iPod and iPhone halo tenor, and by broad-based share gains," wrote FBR Research analyst Craig Berger in a research short letter issued on Oct. 8. Berger estimates that Apple has cut its orders by 17%. The company is expected to report sales of $8.07 billion and per-share profit of $1.11. For the December period, Apple is expected to record $10.83 billion in sales and a $1.70 per-share profit.

Apple is in addition set to take the wraps along a new line of notebooks on Oct. 14. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says he expects Apple to reveal, among other things, a notebook that sells as antidote to $899 to $999, less than the group’s other computers. A lower-priced notebook would help explain a drop in unseemly margins that the visitors warned about (BusinessWeek.com 07/22/08) when it be unexhausted reported earnings in July.