Amtech Systems posts strong Q3 prelim rev, shares jump

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Solar equipment supplier Amtech Systems Inc (ASYS.O) posted strong third-quarter preliminary revenue, helped by record bookings, sending its shares up 15 percent.

A combination of multiple factors, including improved feed-in tariff (FIT) outlook, gives the company good visibility in the near term, Merriman Curhan Ford & Co analyst Bill Ong told Reuters on phone.

Ong said Amtech Systems has a good customer base in Chinese solar panel makers.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2010, the company posted preliminary revenue of about $42 million, up over three-fold from last year.

Analysts on average were expecting third-quarter revenue of $36.02 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"With our continued success in expanding our solar market share with an increasing number of top tier solar customers, we recorded a record number of orders for a third quarter," Chief Executive Jong Whang said in a statement.

Amtech Systems' quarterly bookings were about $44 million. The company's total order backlog as of June 30, 2010, was about $80 million.

Shares of the company, which expects to report final third-quarter results in early August, were trading up 9 percent at $9.38 Wednesday late morning on Nasdaq. They touched a high of $9.92 earlier in the session.

(Reporting by Vinay Sarawagi in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)