What happened
Shares of SMART Global Holdings Inc. (SGH 1.52%) jumped 11% on Friday after the specialty memory and storage solutions company posted stronger-than-expected fiscal second-quarter 2018 results.
More Specifically, SMART Global's quarterly revenue climbed 83% year over year to $314 million, which translated to adjusted earnings of $1.73 per diluted share. Both figures arrived above the high ends of SMART's latest guidance ranges (provided in December), which called for revenue of $280 million to $300 million, and adjusted earnings per share of $1.30 to $1.36.
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So what
SMART Global co-CEO Iain MacKenzie credited the company's outperformance to a combination of favorable industry supply and demand trends -- which drove memory densities and pricing higher -- operating expense controls, and improving economic conditions in Brazil.
"We remain confident in our ability to drive additional growth and improvement in both SMART Brazil and our Specialty Memory businesses as the global memory market and economic trends in Brazil remain positive," MacKenzie added, "and we see increasing demand from our OEM customers, particularly in the storage and networking end markets."
Now what
For the current fiscal third quarter of 2018, SMART Global Holdings expects net sales in the range of $320 million to $340 million and adjusted earnings per share of $1.74 to $1.82. Analysts, on average, were anticipating adjusted earnings of only $1.26 per share on revenue of roughly $293 million.
All things considered, this was an exceptional quarter from SMART Global Holdings, followed by an encouraging outlook for the months ahead. So it's hard to blame the market for propelling SMART Global stock to fresh highs today.
