What: Shares of China Digital TV Holding Co., Ltd. (STV) fell more than 10% Wednesday after the company turned in solid fourth-quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 11.9% year over year to $25.9 million. That translated to earnings of $0.17 per diluted share, which was in line with analysts' expectations.
As a result, full-year 2013 revenue and earnings per share came in at $87.2 million and $0.41, respectively. Analysts, on average, were looking for 2013 earnings of just $0.30 per share on sales of $82.4 million.
However, China Digital TV expects current quarter revenue to fall to a range of $16.4 million to $17.7 million, the midpoint of which represents a 14.3% drop from last year's first quarter.
Now what: That could make it difficult for China Digital TV to live up to the expectations of analysts, who went into the report modeling 2014 sales of $86.4 million.
Even though the stock might look like a bargain trading at just 7.4 times last year's earnings, I can't blame investors for stepping back as long as China Digital TV's top-line appears to be moving in the wrong direction. For now, that's why I'm perfectly happy keeping an eye on China Digital TV's progress from the sidelines.
