Mentor Graphics reports fiscal Q4 results

USA: Mentor Graphics Corp. announced financial results for the company’s fiscal fourth quarter and year ended January 31, 2013. The company reported revenues of $331.2 million, non-GAAP earnings per share of $.58, and GAAP earnings per share of $.49.

For the full fiscal year, revenues were $1,088.7 million, non-GAAP earnings per share were a record $1.42, and GAAP earnings per share were $1.17.

“The fourth quarter was our sixteenth quarter in a row of exceeding non-GAAP earnings guidance. It capped a year in which Mentor Graphics achieved all-time records in revenue, operating margin and non-GAAP earnings per share,” said Walden C. Rhines, chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics. “Like our peers in EDA, we continue to benefit from semiconductor retooling requirements driven by advanced design activity. Also like some others in our industry, our business benefits from the growth of the market for system-level design, which is outpacing the market for chip design software.”

In fiscal year 2013, revenue grew 7.3 percent while non-GAAP and GAAP earnings per share grew 26 percent and 58 percent, respectively. Non-GAAP and GAAP operating margins for the year were all-time records at 19.3 percent and 14.8 percent, respectively. For the full fiscal year, non-GAAP operating expense was up 2 percent and up 1.2 percent on a GAAP basis.

“The company delivered record operating results in fiscal 2013, primarily as a result of continued expense control,” said Gregory K. Hinckley, president of Mentor Graphics. “We solidly exceeded our non-GAAP operating margin target in fiscal 2013 and on a GAAP basis our margins are among the best in technical software. In recent years we have successfully balanced our investment in product and market development and the sales channel while delivering continuous improvement in operating results.”

During the fourth quarter the company announced two products related to printed circuit board design: the next-generation PADS flow, with enhancements to interactive routing, improved usability and Chinese language support; and the newest release of the market-leading HyperLynx product for high-speed design and analysis.

Another announcement this quarter was the Tessent IJTAG solution, which allows designers to reuse existing test, monitoring and debugging logic embedded in IP blocks. With the new T3Ster DynTIM Tester technology, the company launched a new method of measuring thermal characteristics of interface materials. Mentor also introduced a hardware emulation solution for testing ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor-based System-on-Chip (SoC) designs using Veloce emulators.

During the quarter the company also announced that Tesla Motors, a leader in the production of electric automobiles, has standardized on the Capital toolset for its electrical systems design. India-based Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., a leading global tractor manufacturer, also standardized on the Capital products for design, engineering and analysis in their tractor and automotive divisions.