applied materials inc shares gained in late trading wednesday after the semiconductorequipment manufacturer reported record sales amid a global chip shortage and gave a revenue forecast that met expectations applied materials amat reported fiscal firstquarter earnings of 179 billion or 2 a share on record sales of 627 billion up from 516 billion a year ago after adjusting for certain incometax effects and other factors the chipequipment company reported earnings of 189 a share up from 139 a share a year ago analysts on average expected adjusted earnings of 186 a share on sales of 619 billion according to factset shares increased more than 2 in afterhours trading wednesday after closing with a 08 gain at 14096 chipequipment suppliers’ shares have moved more in reaction to their forecasts than their results this quarter as applied materials rivals such as lam research corp lrcx and kla corp klac have issued disappointing guidance amid supplychain issues the companies have had trouble sourcing the chips they need to build the machines that help manufacture chips amid a global semiconductor shortage leading to concerns about the ability to complete and ship their products especially in the first half of this year “this issue has become an industrywide concern and applied is not immune to it” stifel analysts wrote in a preview of the report “in fact given its scale and size applied has many moving parts that likely make its supplychain and procurement capabilities more complex than other companies” applied materials missed a bit with the midpoint of its earnings forecast but presented stronger sales guidance executives guided for fiscal secondquarter adjusted earnings of 175 to 205 a share on sales of 605 billion to 665 billion wednesday while analysts on average were expecting 194 a share on revenue of 637 billion those expectations had decreased slightly in recent weeks showing the effects of guidance from rivals “while the supply environment remains challenging applied materials is doing everything we can to deliver for our customers and we recorded our highestever quarterly revenues” chief executive gary dickerson said in a statement “our outlook for 2022 and beyond is very positive as longterm secular trends drive our markets structurally higher and applied’s broad technology portfolio puts us in a great position to capture a larger portion of our served markets” applied materials shares have also come down in response to other chipequipment companies’ disappointing forecasts falling 104 in the past three months more than double the 49 decline of the sp 500 index spx