Synaptics executives see growth ahead as company reports fiscal 2018 earnings

Synaptics’ net revenue for fiscal 2018 fell 5 percent from 2017 to $1.63 billion, as its Q4 revenue dropped 9 percent to $388.5 million, according to an earnings announcement.

The company’s GAAP net loss for the year was $124.1 million, or $3.63 per share, but in the fourth quarter it lost only $1.5 million, or $0.04 per share. Non-GAAP net income, which excludes expenses such as share-based compensation and acquisition costs, fell $32.5 million from 2017 to $141.4 million, or $4.05 per diluted share.

“The transformation of Synaptics to a more diversified company with greater earnings power is well underway. Leading with our differentiated technology, our corporate-wide focus on driving profitability within our product portfolio is beginning to pay off, as we posted our fourth consecutive quarter of gross margin improvement,” stated Rick Bergman, President and CEO. “As we move into fiscal 2019, we remain intent on targeting the right verticals within the very large markets in which we participate, positioning us to drive further improvements in gross margins and operating profits.”

Roughly 57 percent of Synaptics’ revenue for Q4 2018 was generated by touchscreens, display drivers, and fingerprint products for mobile devices, though the company reclassified some of its mobile product revenue to the IoT category. Its revenue from PC products, including fingerprint sensors, increased 23 percent from the fourth quarter a year ago, to 18 percent of its overall earnings.

“Considering our backlog of $267.3 million entering the September quarter, subsequent bookings, customer forecasts and product sell-in and sell-through timing patterns, and the resulting expected product mix, we anticipate revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2019 to be in the range of $390 to $430 million,” added CFO Wajid Ali. “We expect the revenue mix from mobile, consumer IoT and PC products to be approximately 61 percent, 22 percent and 17 percent, respectively.”

“For fiscal 2019 we anticipate a low single-digit revenue increase driven by growth across the majority of our product platforms, despite near-term headwinds from mobile product shortages and the restructuring of our mobile fingerprint business. In addition, we expect to achieve increased gross margins and earnings growth.”

Since the close of the Synaptics’ fiscal year, its far-field digital signal processors were chosen for Baidu’s conversational IoT platform, DuerOS.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  financial results  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Synaptics