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Updated: 26-Aug-25 13:59 ET
Semtech surges on Q2 EPS beat and robust, record-setting data center growth (SMTC)
Semtech (SMTC) is surging in the wake of its 2Q26 earnings release as investors reward the company's continued execution amid a semiconductor landscape marked by AI-driven demand and supply chain stabilization. SMTC edged past Q2 EPS expectations by a penny, delivering non-GAAP earnings of $0.41, while revenue expanded nearly 20% yr/yr to $257.6 million, essentially matching analysts' estimates. This robust revenue growth underscores SMTC's strategic efforts to rationalize its portfolio -- streamlining underperforming segments -- and ramp up investments in core assets, particularly data centers, LoRa connectivity, and PerSe, each of which delivered outsized contributions to sales momentum and positioned the company for sustained margin expansion in a high-growth environment.
- Turning to the Infrastructure market, SMTC posted robust yr/yr net sales growth of 39% to $73.4 mln, a standout performer that highlights the company's deepening entrenchment in the exploding data center ecosystem. This surge was propelled by record revenue in the data center business, reaching $52.2 mln, up an impressive 92% yr/yr, fueled by strong adoption of its CyberEdge optical products, which notched record sales amid heightened demand for high-speed interconnects in AI and cloud infrastructure.
- Based on Q2's performance, SMTC anticipates continued strong opportunities for fiber edge demand through the remainder of the year and beyond, particularly from optical module customers serving North American cloud service providers, where design wins and production ramps are accelerating.
- While bookings and forecasts from optical module customers targeting China-based CSPs remained generally cautious due to persistent limits on GPU availability, the company has observed accelerated data center bookings over the past several weeks in this market, signaling a potential inflection point. Looking ahead, SMTC expects the data center market to sustain its multiyear growth cycle over the next several quarters, bolstered by innovations like 800G Linear-drive Pluggable Optics and Active Copper Cables, which promise up to 50% power savings and position the firm to capture a meaningful share of the $50 bln-plus interconnect TAM.
- In the high-end consumer end market, net sales advanced 11% yr/yr to $41.2 mln, demonstrating resilience in a segment prone to cyclicality and underscoring SMTC's competitive moat in premium devices. Notably, net sales in consumer TVs climbed 15% to nearly $30 mln, aligning with the typical seasonality tied to smartphone unit ramps and reflecting SMTC's robust content portfolio across multiple blue-chip customers.
- This growth trajectory outpaced overall handset volume expansion, reinforcing the company's conviction that it is steadily gaining content and market share -- attributable to its market-leading performance metrics, such as superior signal integrity and power efficiency, coupled with exemplary supply chain excellence that has minimized disruptions and enhanced reliability in a volatile global sourcing environment.
- The industrial end market also contributed meaningfully, with net sales rising 14% to $143 mln, driven by broadening adoption of SMTC's connectivity solutions in a diversifying array of applications. Within this segment, net sales of LoRa-enabled solutions reached $36.9 mln, up 29% yr/yr, supported by continued expansion across several end markets including smart cities, industrial automation, and asset tracking, where the technology's scalability has proven indispensable.
Overall, SMTCs Q2 results and in-line Q3 guidance affirm a trajectory of operational discipline and strategic focus, with the data center market emerging as the clear powerhouse, delivering triple-digit growth and setting the stage for outsized contributions in the quarters ahead.