Apple-supplier Dialog Semi's Q4 sales at bottom of forecast range

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Chip designer Dialog Semiconductor, which supplies iPhone maker Apple, reported preliminary fourth-quarter sales at the low end of its target range on Monday, sending its shares down more than 3 percent.

Around 75 percent of Dialog's business is supplying power-management chips to Apple, which warned in November of slow year-end sales and on Jan. 3 issued its first sales warning in 12 years, blaming weaker iPhone sales in China.

Shares in suppliers have been hit as a result, with many forced to revise their guidance lower. Dialog, however, stood by its fourth-quarter revenue forecast and managed - just - to meet it.

The Anglo-German company said unaudited preliminary sales came in at $431 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a guidance range of $430 million-470 million.

Dialog, which struck a $600 million deal in October to transfer people and patents to Apple as part of a push to diversify its business, estimated its cash and cash equivalent at $678 million at the end of 2018, up $199 million year on year.

Its shares were down 3.5 percent at 0818 GMT. Dialog will publish audited results for 2018 on March 6.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz, editing by Riham Alkousaa and Susan Fenton)