Silicon Motion Tech (NASDAQ:SIMO)

First Quarter 2012 Results

• Net sales decreased 4.7% quarter-over-quarter to US$64.0 million from US$67.1 million in 4Q11
• Net sales increased 48% year-over-year from $43.4 million in 1Q11
• Gross margin (non-GAAP[1]) decreased to 49.5% from 49.8% in 4Q11
• Operating expenses (non-GAAP) increased to US$16.8 million from US$16.6 million in 4Q11
• Operating margin (non-GAAP) decreased to 23.3% from 25.1% in 4Q11
• Diluted earnings per ADS (non-GAAP) decreased to US$0.41 from US$0.47 in 4Q11

Commenting on the results of the first quarter, Silicon Motion's President and CEO, Wallace Kou, said:

"I am pleased to deliver our first quarter revenue at the high-end of our quarterly guidance. Our first quarter revenue of $64.0 million is 48% higher than the same period a year ago and is the highest first quarter revenue in the Company's history. This quarter, our eMMC controllers for a major NAND flash partner went into production and four new Samsung LTE smartphones using our LTE transceivers started selling to end consumers, sales from which helped propel a 20% sequential increase in our New Growth Products.

Our mobile storage business and the OEM part of this business declined as seasonally expected. However, our module maker business was stronger than expected primarily because of increased availability of low-cost NAND flash for module makers to build bundled cards for Chinese OEMs targeting the growing low-cost smartphone market. Separately, we are excited to announce that our eMMC controllers for a NAND flash partner has entered mass production. These eMMC modules, including MCPs, using our controllers are now shipping in volume to several leading Asian handset OEMs for their smartphones, including some highly anticipated, high-end global flagship models. We have a number of new eMMC design wins for production in the second quarter and the second half of this year and now have design wins with seven smartphone OEMs. As a result, we believe that our eMMC is on track to deliver significant growth.

Our mobile communications business grew in the first quarter with increasing LTE transceiver sales. During the quarter, Sprint, Metro PCs, and US Cellular began sales of four new Samsung LTE smartphones using our LTE transceivers: the Galaxy Attain 4G, Galaxy S Aviator, Galaxy Tab 10.1, and Galaxy Nexus. We are excited about the outlook for our LTE business with Samsung and are pleased to announce that we now have a total of 11 design wins for 2012."

Business Outlook:

Silicon Motion's President and CEO, Wallace Kou, added:

"Retail demand for memory cards and end demand for smartphones sold with bundled cards—other than those sold by certain OEMs—have been weak. We expect this weakness to impact our business in the second quarter. However, increasing sales of our New Growth Products should offset this weakness. We are excited about the ramp of our new eMMC controllers with our NAND flash partner and its smartphone OEM customers, as well as the continued growth of our Samsung LTE business. We expect our eMMC business with another NAND flash partner to begin mass production in late second quarter."

For the Second quarter of 2012, management expects:

• Revenue to be up 0% to 10% sequentially
• Gross margin (non-GAAP) to be in the 48% to 50% range
• Operating expenses (non-GAAP) of approximately US$17 to US$18 million

Our full-year 2012 guidance remains unchanged:

• Revenue to be up 20% to 30% compared with full year 2011
• Gross margin (non-GAAP) to be in the 48% to 50% range
• Operating expenses (non-GAAP) of approximately US$65 to US$70 million

Fourth Quarter 2011 Results

• Net sales increased 6% quarter-over-quarter to US$67.1 million from US$63.2 million in 3Q11
• Gross margin (non-GAAP[1]) increased to 49.8% from 49.4% in 3Q11
• Operating expenses (non-GAAP) increased to US$16.6 million from US$14.8 million in 3Q11
• Operating margin (non-GAAP) decreased to 25.1% from 26.0% in 3Q11
• Diluted earnings per ADS (non-GAAP) increased to US$0.47 from US$0.40 in 3Q11

"We are excited to report that the US$67.1 million revenue for the fourth quarter and the US$224.3 million revenue for full year 2011 are the highest quarterly and annual revenue in the Company's history. Revenue for full year 2011 grew a strong 69% when compared to 2010. We delivered stellar sales this quarter while at the same time increasing gross margins. Our revenue this quarter benefited from continued strength of our mobile storage OEM business together with unexpected growth from our module maker business. These strengths more than offset the expected, temporary mobile communications slowdown in the quarter.

Business Outlook:

Silicon Motion's President and CEO, Wallace Kou, added:

"2011 was another outstanding year for Silicon Motion and we are excited and proud to have delivered a strong 69% revenue growth, especially when global economic conditions were challenging. We are therefore also excited about generating further growth in 2012 from our card controllers, as well as new growth products such as LTE transceivers and eMMC controllers. We believe our new growth products could account for about a quarter of our total revenue this year and perhaps more next year.

For the current first quarter, we expect our overall mobile storage revenue to decline sequentially because of seasonal factors and stronger than expected module maker device build in the prior quarter. We believe that our LTE transceiver business should grow as new handset design-wins begin to ramp, which should partially offset mobile storage weakness."

For the first quarter of 2012, management expects:

• Revenue to be down 5% to 15% sequentially
• Gross margin (non-GAAP) to be in the 47% to 49% range
• Operating expenses (non-GAAP) of approximately US$15.5 to US$17.0 million

For the full year 2012, management expects:

• Revenue to be up 20% to 30% compared with full year 2011
• Gross margin (non-GAAP) to be in the 48% to 50% range
• Operating expenses (non-GAAP) of approximately US$65 to US$70 million

Third Quarter 2011 Results

Financial Highlights

• Net sales increased 25% quarter-over-quarter to US$63.2 million from US$50.5 million in 2Q11
• Gross margin excluding stock-based compensation increased to 49.4% from 46.9% in 2Q11
• Operating expenses excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items increased to US$14.8 million from US$13.1 million in 2Q11
• Operating margin excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items increased to 26.0% from 21.1% in 2Q11
• Diluted earnings per ADS excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, net foreign exchange gain (loss), and other items increased to US$0.40, from US$0.29 in 2Q11

"We are excited to report that the US$63.2 million revenue this quarter is the highest quarterly revenue in our company's history. We delivered stellar sales while at the same time increasing our gross margins, and are reporting one of the highest quarters of non-GAAP EPS and the highest GAAP EPS in our company's history. Among other factors, this quarter we benefited from substantially better than expected availability of NAND flash and accelerated build of 4G LTE smartphones by Samsung.

NAND flash makers released more NAND flash components into the market and this action led to the 15% sequential growth of our mobile storage business as module makers increased their purchases of both flash and our controllers to build storage devices. Our OEM sales however were flat sequentially, as we expected, because of inventory management decisions by NAND flash makers. Our controller sales to tier-1 OEM device makers were, on the other hand, exceptionally strong. Our sales of advanced controllers supporting TLC flash increased over 10% sequentially during the quarter and continued to account for over 35% of all controller sales. In the second half of 2011, we expect a significant majority of our controllers will be for supporting 2x nm flash. We are on track with our eMMC projects and have three projects that are moving from qualification to production in the fourth quarter of 2011. To meet our customers' schedules we have already begun fabrication of eMMC controllers at our foundry partner.

Our mobile communications business delivered another exceptional quarter, growing 58% sequentially as Samsung accelerated its build of 4G LTE smartphones. For these LTE smartphones, we are supplying both an LTE transceiver and a multi-band CDMA EV-DO transceiver. We believe Samsung's LTE smartphones are experiencing very strong sales in the US because of their superior performance, strong consumer demand, and aggressive roll-out of LTE wireless broadband by US carriers. LTE handsets and tablets which ramped-up in the third quarter include the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the new Samsung Stratosphere, both available through Verizon Wireless."

For the fourth quarter of 2011, management expects:

• Revenue to be flat to down 10% sequentially
   
• Gross margin excluding stock-based compensation to be in the 47% to 49% range
   
• Operating expenses excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items of approximately US$15 to US$17 million

For the full year 2011, management is increasing guidance as previously announced in July and now expects:

• Revenue to be up 61% to 66% compared with full year 2010
   
• Gross margin excluding stock-based compensation to be in the 47% to 48% range
   
• Operating expenses excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items of approximately US$56 to US$58 million

Fourth Quarter 2010

Financial Highlights

• Net sales increased 17% quarter-over-quarter to US$40.0 million from US$34.2 million in 3Q10
• Gross margin excluding stock-based compensation decreased to 45.1% from 48.4% in 3Q10
• Operating expenses excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items decreased to US$11.2 million from US$13.2 million in 3Q10
• Operating margin excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items increased to 17.3% from 9.8% in 3Q10
• Diluted earnings per ADS excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, net foreign exchange gain (loss), and other items increased to US$0.18 from US$0.16 in 3Q10

Business Outlook:

Silicon Motion's President and CEO, Wallace Kou, added:

 "We are proud of the growth we generated in 2010 but we believe that the opportunities ahead for 2011 are even more exciting. Flash supply is expected to increase further in 2011 as the major flash vendors ramp up new manufacturing facilities while demand is expanding beyond the traditional card and USB flash drive markets into exciting new embedded opportunities in smartphones, tablets and other devices. Additionally, we are leveraging our controller technology leadership to enter new OEMs programs involving major flash vendors.  As the year progresses, I intend to discuss more about our design wins involving our embedded solutions as well as our OEM programs."

For the first quarter of 2011, management expects:

• Revenue to be flat to down 10% sequentially
• Gross margin excluding stock-based compensation to be in the 46% to 48% range
• Operating expenses excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items of approximately US$12 to US$14 million

For the full year 2011, management expects:

• Revenue to be up 20% to 30% compared with full year 2010
• Gross margin excluding stock-based compensation to be in the 46% to 48% range
• Operating expenses excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related charges, and other items of approximately US$53 to US$56 million