NFC chip vendor NXP used its third quarter earnings conference call to tout its presence in over 90 handsets and tablets, but announced it intends to remain silent on forecasting growth for the industry. CEO Rick Clemmer (pictured) claimed its success in the device market represents “close to a 50 percent increase from a quarter ago… This progress continues to be very positively received.”

However, he declined to offer a revised projection for the number of NFC phones to be shipped this year. “Clearly our Q4 projections include a significant rampup of NFC,” he noted. “We are trying to get out of the business of actually doing forecasts for ourselves as well as the industry but it will increase substantially in Q4 based on the orders we have from our customers and run rates associated with it.”

In May, NXP predicted 40 to 100 million NFC-based handsets would be shipped in 2011. Two months later Clemmer revised that figure “towards the lower end or perhaps even slightly below our initial range for 2011 as the mobile operators implement their deployment strategies".

For the third quarter, the Dutch-based chip vendor (supplying components used in televisions, automobiles, phones, lighting systems and personal computers) saw net income drop 18 percent (to US$301 million) amid a downturn in customer orders that the company expects to deepen. Revenue for the period totaled US$1.06 billion, a 5 percent decrease from the same time last year. NXP offered a sobering assessment of the current quarter and suggested it could face more adversity next year, too, as its customers manage inventories more cautiously in a weak economy. Clemmer said he didn't expect orders to pick up until the company's customers were more confident about demand for their own products.