May 4, 2012—In its first-quarter financial report, Newport Corporation (Irvine, Calif., U.S.A.) reported on May 2 that the company has booked a record number of new orders of 186.1 million, a 43.5 percent year-over-year increase compared to the first quarter of 2011. The company’s growth includes $70.7 million due to orders from recent acquisitions, including that of ILX Lightwave (Bozeman, Mont., U.S.A) in the first quarter. Last year, Newport completed acquisitions of Ophir Optronics (Jerusalem, Israel), and High Q Technologies GmbH (Rankweil, Austria), which also added to the successful bottom line.
First-quarter sales increased 22.4 percent to 157.2 million, compared to the first quarter of 2011, which includes more than $39 million in sales from the recent acquisitions. Also promising is a large backlog of $174.9 million scheduled to ship over the next year. The growth was in Newport’s end markets of scientific research, aerospace and defense/security, life and health sciences, and industrial manufacturing and other. First-quarter sales in the microelectronics end market of Newport declined, due to low orders in the semiconductor segment.