What: Shares of Kulicke and Soffa Industries (KLIC) jumped more than 16% Wednesday after the semiconductor assembly-equipment company reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter 2016 results.
So what: Quarterly revenue climbed 1% year over year, to $108.5 million, and translated to a net loss of $0.1 million, or roughly flat on a per-share basis. But analysts, on average, were anticipating a $0.13 per-share loss on lower revenue of $95.3 million.
Kulicke & Soffa CEO Jonathan Chou explained: "Throughout this period of industry softness, our entire organization continues to be extremely disciplined on managing costs while we maintain our aggressive development efforts within both our core and emerging advanced packaging opportunities."
Management noted that, as of the company's fourth-quarter conference call in November 2015, that break-even revenue for fiscal Q1 was expected to be much higher, at $125 million.
Now what: In addition, Kulicke & Soffa expects fiscal second-quarter 2016 revenue to be roughly $130 million to $140 million, as the industry enjoys stabilizing inventory in what Chou describes as a "recovering market environment." By comparison, analysts' consensus estimates called for fiscal Q2 revenue of just $129.1 million.
While Kulicke & Soffa's results don't look terribly strong at first glance, this is a cut-and-dry case of a beat and raise from a company that has wisely focused on operational efficiency to weather the industry downturn. As Kulicke & Soffa continues its steady march toward achieving sustained, profitable growth as the industry improves, I see no reason its stock price won't follow suit.
