First-quarter profit will be 48 cents to 52 cents a share on sales of US$3.07 billion to US$3.19 billion, the Dallas-based company said Monday in a statement. In January, Texas Instruments predicted sales of as little as US$2.95 billion and profit of as low as 44 cents a share.

Texas Instruments expects all of its business to grow this quarter from the previous three months, Vice President Ron Slaymaker said on a conference call. While electronics demand is improving, some investors wanted Texas Instruments to raise the upper end of its forecasts, said Patrick Wang, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in New York.

“All of the industry data points continue to be healthy,” said Wang, who has an “outperform” rating on Texas Instruments and owns the stock.

Texas Instruments fell 15 cents to US$24.54 in extended trading. The shares, which rose 68 percent last year, closed at US$24.69 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Analysts had projected profit of 49 cents a share and revenue of US$3.09 billion on average, according to a Bloomberg survey. Christopher Danely, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in San Francisco, had predicted first-quarter sales of US$3.2 billion and a profit of 52 cents a share.

The improvements in Texas Instruments' earnings reflect increasing demand rather than the company just fixing bottlenecks in production, Slaymaker said. Still, the company has increased output and reduced lead times — the period between orders being received and filled, he said.