Semiconductor company Texas Instruments lowered its financial guidance for the first quarter of 2012, citing a poor performance for its Wireless product lines.

In a conference call, Ron Slaymaker, TI’s VP in charge of investor communications, said it saw weakness across both its application processor and connectivity product lines. For its OMAP application processor line, it benefited in the fourth quarter from the introduction of new products by multiple customers, which led to a spike in sales.

“Our customers are now rationalising both their expectations for ongoing demand, as well as the associated inventory,” Slaymaker said.

TI said that following the introduction of new product sales, re-assessments of inventory levels are common place, because there is not historic performance on which to base demand.

It was noted that the weakness is not related to the actions of a single customer, “but we do have a couple of customers that make up a significant amount of our connectivity business that have seen their business decline.”

The company highlighted that the adjustments to its forecast were the result of weakness in its Wireless business unit, and that in its other units results were consistent with its expectations.

According to the company, revenue for Q1 2012 will now be in the US$2.99 billion–US$3.11 billion range, compared with the prior range of US$3.02 billion–US$3.28 billion range. Earnings per share will be US$0.15–US$0.19, compared with US$0.16–US$0.24.

The company used Mobile World Congress to highlight the potential of its OMAP line beyond mobile devices, including for applications related to the digital home, enterprise mobility and cloud computing.