Semiconductor machinery manufacturer Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) will be reporting results tomorrow after market hours. Here’s what to look for.
Applied Materials beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.2% last quarter, reporting revenues of $7.05 billion, up 4.8% year on year. It was a strong quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ EPS estimates and a significant improvement in its inventory levels.
Is Applied Materials a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Applied Materials’s revenue to grow 6.5% year on year to $7.14 billion, improving from its flat revenue in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $2.30 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Applied Materials has a history of exceeding Wall Street’s expectations, beating revenue estimates every single time over the past two years by 2.5% on average.
Looking at Applied Materials’s peers in the semiconductor manufacturing segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. FormFactor delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 12.7%, meeting analysts’ expectations, and KLA Corporation reported revenues up 23.7%, topping estimates by 4.5%. FormFactor traded down 6.8% following the results while KLA Corporation’s stock price was unchanged.
Read our full analysis of FormFactor’s results here and KLA Corporation’s results here.
Investors in the semiconductor manufacturing segment have had fairly steady hands going into earnings, with share prices down 1.4% on average over the last month. Applied Materials is up 5.5% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $210.42 (compared to the current share price of $183.20).
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