Himax stock surges in pre-market after Q3 prelim results beat outlook

Himax Technologies (HIMX) reported preliminary results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018. Revenue, earnings, and gross margin numbers exceeded the company’s outlook given during the second quarter reporting. Shares of the fabless semiconductor company jumped about 7% in the pre-market trading on Friday.

Revenue increased 3.9% sequentially to $188.4 million versus guidance of around flat from the last quarter, benefitted by the greater-than-expected production output of the new foundries for large display driver ICs and TDDI chips. Also, the WLO shipment volume to Himax’s anchor customer increased significantly versus the second quarter. However, revenue dropped 4% compared to the prior-year quarter.

The Taiwan-based chip company’s IFRS earnings per ADS were 0.5 cents, higher than the guidance of around -1.0 cents. Non-IFRS earnings per ADS were 2.6 cents, which also exceeded the company’s target of around 1.5 cents. Gross margin was 23.4% versus guidance of around 22.5%.

Himax will report the full financial report for Q3 in November and hopes its businesses to come out of the pressure starting from the final quarter of 2018.

For the second quarter, Himax missed analysts’ expectations on the revenue front even though it registered a year-over-year growth of 19.5% to $181.4 million. IFRS earnings per ADS were 1.2 cents and non-IFRS earnings per ADS stood at 1.3 cents.

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Last month, Himax expressed its optimism about the growth opportunities in TDDI, WLO and 3D sensing businesses in the second half of 2018 and leading into 2019. The company added that these three businesses are expected to contribute significantly to its top and bottom lines as they represent higher average sales prices and profitability than its traditional display driver IC business.

Smart Global Holdings (SGH), a Brazilian manufacturer of memory chips, reported its Q4 results after market hours on Thursday, which beat analysts’ views. Also, the company’s upbeat earnings outlook for Q1 sent the shares in the upward direction after the earnings announcement and the stock is up more than 15% in the pre-market trading today.

Shares of Himax Technologies, which plunged to a 52-week low ($5.67) last week, were slightly down by 0.16 at $6.41 Thursday. The stock is down 41% and 38% over the past year and year-to-date period, respectively. Himax shares erased the initial gains and turned to red at 9:15 AM ET.

Smart Global Holdings gains on upbeat Q4 results