SMART Modular Technologies (Nasdaq: SMOD) may not be a household name, but the company's products are in a lot of name-brand systems. And it's working itself into more of them as we speak.
Third-quarter sales exploded with 119% year-over-year and 26% sequential growth, landing at $201 million. Non-GAAP earnings also grew from $0.01 per share a year ago and $0.23 per share in the second quarter to $0.26 per share in the third quarter. Both revenue and earnings exceeded analyst expectations, and management guidance topped the Street view on both counts as well. SMART's stock price jumped by more than 4% in after-hours trading on the news.
And this is just the beginning. SMART's traditional business is selling memory modules on an OEM (original equipment manufacturers) basis to system builders; Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), and Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) combined to drive about 50% of the company's sales this quarter. Of these, HP and Cisco have been major SMART customers for years, while Dell has recently increased its contribution significantly. SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK), Samsung, and Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) each compete with SMART in multiple markets. With that in mind, you can take SMART's successes as a positive sign in the tea leaves for the competition as well; I think we're talking about a rising tide that lifts all boats rather than SMART stealing share from its rivals.
SMART is expanding its horizons at the moment by launching enterprise-class solid-state drives and consumer-level Flash memory products. Thanks to resurgent demand for computer systems and other electronic gadgets, along with entry into the nascent SSD market, I can see SMART growing sales at this impressive clip for the next two years and beyond. The trick is to keep building out manufacturing capacity in step with demand, and management is on the ball in that sense. This plucky memory module builder will ride the sector rebound hard while expanding into adjacent markets along the way.
That's why I just swung by Motley Fool CAPS and rated SMART "outperform" for the next two to four years. Grab a free CAPS account (if you don't already have one) and follow along, won't you?
