What happened
Shares of Sierra Wireless Inc. (SWIR) were up 19.3% as of 3:45 p.m. EDT Friday after the Internet of Things (IoT) specialist announced strong quarterly results and a big share-repurchase authorization.
Regarding the former, Sierra Wireless' quarterly revenue grew 16.4% year over year, to $201.9 million, near the high end of its previous guidance for a range of $195 million to $203 million, which translated to adjusted net income of $0.27 per share, also well above guidance for $0.17 to $0.25.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
So what
Sierra Wireless' core OEM solutions segment revenue grew a modest 4.5%, to $150.9 million. But its smaller enterprise solutions and IoT services businesses gained scale much more quickly, with revenue climbing 41.1%, to $28.4 million, and 209.6%, to $22.6 million, respectively. Interim CEO Kent Thexton noted that these latter two segments now comprise a quarter of total sales and are not only Sierra Wireless' fastest-growing, but also its highest-margin businesses.
If that wasn't enough, Sierra Wireless announced approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange for a Normal Course Issuer Bid -- essentially a share-repurchase plan -- for up to 3.58 million shares, or 10% of its public float. The program will commence on August 8, 2018.
Now what
Finally, for the third quarter, Sierra Wireless sees revenue of $198 million to $207 million and adjusted net income per share of $0.22 to $0.30. Analysts, on average, were looking for earnings just below the midpoint on revenue near the low end of Sierra Wireless' guidance range.
All told, there was nothing not to like about this strong quarter, big repurchase plan, and optimistic forward guidance. And the stock is simply responding in kind.
