DURHAM – Wolfspeed, Inc. (WOLF) on Wednesday reported a loss of $96.7 million in its fiscal second quarter. But CEO Gregg Lowe chose to accent the positive in his review of the quarter.
“We delivered strong revenue at the high end of our guidance during the quarter, our sixth straight quarter of revenue growth, further validating our positioning to capture accelerating demand. The team is successfully growing and converting opportunities in our device pipeline,” Lowe said in a statement. “We are excited about our long-term outlook and we are confident in our strategy and path forward.”
And Chief Financial Officer Neill Reynolds said demand for Wolfspeed products – especially chips – is surging.
“We are continuing to experience a much steeper demand curve from our customers for silicon carbide products than we had initially anticipated,” Reynolds said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts. “This has led to supply constraints where some customer orders will not be fulfilled this fiscal year and channel inventory levels will remain low until we ramp production in our Mohawk Valley Fab.”
Wolfspeed is building out its $1 billion semiconductor plant in New York. It also builds chips in Durham and through a subcontractor in Malaysia.
But there’s more growth for Wolfspeed than in chips, Reynolds pointed out.
“We continue to see strong demand for our power device solutions, resulting in revenue growth of approximately 37% over the prior quarter and growth of more than 100% over the prior year as we saw significant growth in both direct and distribution channel customers,” he explained.
“On the RF device front, we continue to see solid demand from a 5G and aerospace and defense perspective, which increased over the prior year, but was relatively flat over the prior quarter as we continue to increase capacity. From a materials perspective, demand for our 150-millimeter silicon carbide substrates remains very strong. This resulted in year-over-year growth of roughly flat versus prior quarter as we continue to increase capacity and better match supply with demand.”
Inside the results
On a per-share basis, the Durham-based company that’s now focused on semiconductors and power related as well as radio frequency devices said it had a loss of 82 cents. Losses, adjusted for non-recurring costs and to extinguish debt, came to 16 cents per share.
- MORE COVERAGE: Read the full earnings report online.
The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for a loss of 19 cents per share.
Wolfspeed revenue of $173.1 million in the period, also surpassing Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $169 million.
For the current quarter ending in April, Wolfspeed expects its results to range from a loss of 16 cents per share to a loss of 12 cents per share.
The company said it expects revenue in the range of $185 million to $195 million for the fiscal third quarter.
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