NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Bermuda-based Marvell Technology Group Ltd., the maker of telecommunications chips for the BlackBerry and Apple Inc.'s iPhone, reported first-quarter profit and sales that beat analysts' estimates. The stock jumped 17 percent.

Net income was $69.9 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with a loss of $52.8 million, or nine cents, a year earlier, the company said yesterday in a statement. Sales in the quarter ended May 3 rose 27 percent to $804.1 million.

Lower administrative expenses and better-than-expected sales of wireless connectivity, network storage and printer chips helped boost profit margins. Revenue topped analysts' projections after Marvell gave a forecast in March that disappointed investors and said an "uncertain" US economy may affect demand for its products.

"The chip business got a lot better in the month of April," said Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co. analyst Craig Berger, who has an "outperform" rating on the stock. He spoke in an interview before the release. "We saw a pretty strong snap-back in terms of demand and booking."

Marvell rose $2.38 to $16.46 in extended trading after the announcement. The stock, which had been little changed this year, fell 26 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $14.08 in regular Nasdaq Stock Market trading yesterday.

In a separate statement, Marvell named Clyde Hosein as its chief financial officer effective June 23, and said interim CFO George de Urioste will become acting chief operating officer. Hosein was previously CFO at Integrated Device Technology Inc.

For the second quarter, Marvell forecast revenue of $830 million to $840 million, above an average estimate of $810 million from analysts. Gross margin will be as high as 52 percent on a non-GAAP basis, the company said.

Excluding stock-based compensation and other costs, first- quarter profit was 24 cents a share, exceeding the 13-cent average of 17 analysts' estimates complied by Bloomberg. Sales beat the $782.3 million average.

Gross margin, or the percentage of sales left over after stripping out operating costs, increased to 51.6 percent in the quarter on a GAAP basis from $48.4 percent a year earlier.

During the quarter, Marvell recorded a $10 million expense to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission claims it improperly backdated stock-option grants for employees. The company misled investors by not reporting compensation expenses for options granted at below-market prices from 2000 through 2006, according to the SEC. The backdating allowed Marvell to overstate income by $326 million during that period, the SEC said.