I'm riding, I'm shining up my saddle;
I'm riding, this snake is gonna rattle.
I'm back in the saddle again --
I'm back!
-- "Back in the Saddle," by Aerosmith, 1977
Silicon Image
In the first quarter, Silicon Image saw sales jump 43% year-over-year to $49 million while last year's $0.05 non-GAAP loss per share turned into $0.03 of profit per share. Both of the analysts who follow the stock (yes, only two) had expected adjusted earnings of $0.01 per share on sales around $48 million.
So the company has started to grow into its sky-high valuation, which was the main reason for that hurtful downgrade to begin with. Moreover, the recent success of Silicon Image's MHL connectors for mobile media devices increases the company's chances of delivering strong growth in coming quarters, and Silicon Image even squeezed in a materially positive acquisition in this quarter. Not bad for three months of work.
Three months ago, I waxed poetic about the ubiquity of Silicon Image's bread-and-butter HDMI technology, noting that I'd be "shocked" if Apple
Simply put, nobody builds a consumer gadget with any kind of display nowadays without making sure that an HDMI cable can carry its signal to your big-screen TV. The technology isn't perfect -- I, for one, have recycled my old component cables for the living room DVD player because the DRM portion of my HDMI setup sometimes decided that my TV set wasn't allowed to access my DVDs. But it is close to ubiquitous, which means rising sales for Silicon Image as long as the mobile media boom still has legs.
Interested in more info on Silicon Image and its HDMI hegemony? Add the stock to your Foolish watchlist and we'll take it from there.