Seagate, the disk drive manufacturer that pulled out of Clonmel, Co Tipperary, last year with the loss of 1,400 jobs, has announced net profits of $104 million (#89 million) for the quarter to January 1st, 1999.
The figures easily surpassed the expectations of Wall Street analysts and compare to a net loss of $183 million for the same quarter a year ago. The company, which employs almost 1,000 workers in Derry and a similar number in Limavady, Co Derry, said its revenue for the quarter was $1.8 billion, against $1.7 billion in the year-ago quarter.
"We had an excellent quarter with strong revenue and improving gross and operating margins in the disk drive, tape and software businesses," said the company's president and chief executive, Mr Stephen Luczo.
"We believe that this performance is directly related to the actions we have taken over the last year to improve our productivity and improve the competitiveness of our products."
In December 1997, Seagate announced that a world slump in the market for computer disk drives had forced a major corporate restructure. As a result, the Clonmel plant was shut, and plans to employ a further 1,000 at Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, were shelved.
The company's manager for corporate communications, Mr Ian O'Leary, said last night that Ringaskiddy remained Seagate's preferred location for additional magnetic recording media capacity, but stressed that there were no immediate plans to restart the project.
