NXP beats Q4 revenue forecasts as demand for chips continues to outstrip supply

Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors N.V. reported fourth quarter revenue that beat expectations today, however its earnings came in lower than expected, sending its stock down in extended trading.

The company reported a net income of $1.06 billion for the quarter, resulting in earnings of $2.24 per share. Revenue for the period came to $3.04 billion, up 21% from a year ago.

Wall Street had been looking for earnings of $2.99 per share on revenue of $3 billion.

NXP Chief Executive Kurt Sievers (pictured) said in a statement the chipmaker had enjoyed an “excellent year” overall in its fiscal 2021.

“We experienced significant design win traction across the entire portfolio and especially within the areas of our strategic growth drivers,” he said. “We continue to see growing customer demand, outstripping supply, as inventory across all end markets remains very lean. Taken together, this underpins our continued confidence of robust growth throughout 2022.”

Sievers’ comments are justified, as NXP also reported full fiscal 2021 revenue of $11.06 billion, up 28% from a year ago.

NXP manufactures a broad portfolio of silicon but it’s best known for its automotive chips, which are used in everything from car infotainment systems to tire pressure monitoring systems and vehicle-to-vehicle communications. Notably, its chips are built with gateways that prevent communication with every network within a car independently, in order to protect vehicles from being hacked.

The company also manufactures chips used in identification, wired and wireless infrastructure, lighting, industrial, consumer, mobile and computing applications.

NXP said its automotive business unit pulled in $1.547 billion in revenue, up 30% from a year ago and up 6% sequentially from the previous quarter. Industrial & IoT sales added $661 million, up 29% year-over-year and 9% sequentially. Mobile revenue was $374 million, down 9% year-over-year and up 8% sequentially.

Lastly, the communications infrastructure & other business saw sales of $457 million, up 16% from last year and 1% sequentially.

Looking to the first quarter of 2022, NXP said it’s forecasting revenue in a range of $3.025 billion to $3.175 billion, which is well ahead of Wall Street’s forecast of $2.96 billion in sales.

Photo: NXP