Thursday, March 15, 2012

SLAB Off Despite Q4 Beat; Piper Ups Target to $54

Shares of chip maker Silicon Labs (SLAB) are down 16 cents, or 0.3%, at $46.91 despite the company this morning reporting Q4 revenue and profit per share ahead of analysts’ expectations, and projecting Q1 revenue higher as well.

Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 13%, year over year, to $126.7 million, yielding EPS of 49 cents, excluding some costs.

Analysts had been modeling $119.8 million and 43 cents.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue in a range of $120 million to $125 million, above the average $117.9 million estimate.

CEO Necip Sayiner said the company had a “sustained improvement in the strength of bookings as we ended 2011,” and that the company is gaining share with its chips.

Update: Piper Jaffray’s Gus Richard reiterated an Overweight rating and raised his price target to $54 from $47, writing that the quarter was “solid,” the forecast “strong.”

The company is “gaining traction” for its “TV tuner” chip and its touch-screen controller for smartphones, he observes, and some weaker products, such as a tuner for FM radio, is in decline, serving as less of a drag on results.

Richard thinks the company will have above-average growth as a result of “unique mixed signal anything-in-CMOS capability.”

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