What: Shares of MaxLinear (MXL 2.14%) were up 11.9% as of 11:00 a.m. ET Tuesday after the company released strong fourth-quarter 2015 results.
So what: Quarterly revenue more than tripled year over year to $98.9 million. That's in line with the integrated circuit specialist's revised guidance provided last month, and driven by a combination of MaxLinear's acquisition of Entropic last April and "meaningful contributions from [...] organic initiative in satellite pay TV and high-speed optical interconnect markets."
"The strength in fourth quarter revenue was broad-based," elaborated MaxLinear CEO Kishore Seendripu, "with increases derived from the early ramp of high-speed optical interconnect solutions addressing 100Gbps long-haul infrastructure upgrades in China, and additional growth across a range of cable and satellite platforms more than offsetting seasonal weakness in legacy video SoCs."
MaxLinear also generated strong operating cash flow of $25 million during the quarter, driven by both expense management, supply chain optimization efforts, and the ongoing integration of Entropic. Adjusted gross margin came in at 58.1%, down from 61.7% in last year's fourth quarter. On the bottom line, MaxLinear achieved adjusted net income to $30.1 million, or $0.40 per share, up from $2.1 million, or $0.05 per share in the same year-ago period.
Now what: For the current quarter, MaxLinear anticipates revenue between $100 million and $105 million and adjusted gross margin of 59% to 60%. Analysts, on average, were anticipating revenue near the low end of that range.
But considering MaxLinear has a long-standing habit of underpromising and overdelivering -- the stock also enjoyed similar pops in both June and September of last year after initial guidance proved conservative -- it's hard to blame the market for once again bidding up shares today.
