TriQuint Eyes Low-End Smartphone Growth

HILLSBORO, Ore. (TheStreet) -- Low-end smartphones, e-readers and networking base stations will all be big growth drivers for semiconductor specialist TriQuint(TQNT), according to the company's CEO Ralph Quinsey.

"I see tens of billions of communications nodes available to us," he told TheStreet on Thursday, a day after the firm posted strong third-quarter results. "We're seeing the high-end wave now in smartphones, [but] the next wave is going to be low-end smartphones."

Quinsey says that some 500 million people are expected to transition from traditional cellphones to smartphones this year, and the CEO also expects a boost from "machine-to-machine" devices such as e-readers and health monitoring systems.

The TriQuint chief has vowed to build on the company's third-quarter results, which were posted after market close on Wednesday. During the September quarter, TriQuint grew its revenue 37% compared to the same period last year, and the firm gave bullish fourth-quarter guidance.

TriQuint, which also makes components for networking base stations, is best known for supplying transit modules for Apple's(AAPL) iPhone. Teardowns have also revealed TriQuint power amplifiers within the iPad, although the semiconductor firm will not name the companies it works with.

"We work with virtually all smartphone suppliers now, but we have no specific comments about any of them," said Quinsey, adding that TriQuint's mobile device business has grown 40% this year.

There has, however, been chatter that TriQuint has not been chosen to provide power amplifier technology for a CDMA version of Apple's iPhone, which is expected to run on Verizon's(VZ) network. Quinsey declined to comment on this rumor.

Instead, the CEO was more forthcoming on the subject of TriQuint's non-mobile business, which accounts for 32% of the firm's total revenue.

"What has been good this year is that our non-mobile devices grew faster than our mobile devices, at least in the networks proportion of our business," he said. "We see great opportunity [there]."

Quinsey explained that more and more networking base stations are using a technique called Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) in an attempt to boost performance. "The impact for us is that it doubles the available opportunity," he said. "There's double the RF components, because it has two antennas."

Shares of TriQuint, which competes with RF Micro Devices(RFMD) and Skyworks Solutions(SWKS), crept up 31 cents, or 3.10%, to $10.61 on Thursday, despite a modest dip in tech stocks that saw the Nasdaq fall 0.44%.

--Written by James Rogers in New York.

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