Marvell Technology soars after CEO targets $10 billion in revenues next year
Despite Marvell Technology initially falling in after-hours trading after the chip company posted Q3 results modestly ahead of estimates and Q4 guidance in line with expectations, it’s now turned those losses into massive gains thanks to positive commentary on next year’s sales outlook. Shares are up almost 10% as of 5:20 a.m. ET.
On the earnings call, CEO Matt Murphy said that sales could eclipse $10 billion in its upcoming fiscal year, while analysts had penciled in a forecast below $9.5 billion.
That solid anticipated pick-up in sales is being driven by Marvell’s custom chip division, where Murphy touted recent customer wins including an “emerging hyperscaler.”
“We expect our custom business, roughly a quarter of our overall data center revenue, to grow by at least 20% next year,” he said.
While custom chips sales have been a relatively lumpy line item for Marvell, Murphy doesn’t think that will be the case going forward, saying that there won’t be any more “air pockets.”
The Q3 results:
For Q4, management offered guidance for net revenues to come in at $2.2 billion (plus or minus 5%) with adjusted EPS of $0.79 (plus or minus $0.05). That’s virtually bang in line with Wall Street’s call for $2.19 billion and $0.79, respectively.
Along with these results, Marvell announced plans to buy Celestial AI, a company that uses light to move data between chips, for at least $3.25 billion in cash and stock. The purchase price could go up by as much as $2.25 billion if Celestial’s cumulative revenues reach at least $2 billion by the end of Marvell’s fiscal 2029 (roughly speaking, calendar year 2028).
The chip stock has been on a solid run recently, thanks in large part to a wave of investor enthusiasm over custom chips spurred by the launch of Google’s Gemini 3. Marvell works with Amazon as a codesigning partner for its custom chips, including providing connectivity infrastructure for the Trainium3 model, which was publicly launched on Tuesday.
That being said, Marvell has been one of the worst chip stocks this year, and is still down around 7.5% for the year so far.