A technician inspects a semiconductor wafer.
Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg
News last week that Micron Technology expects weak Chinese demand for semiconductors to hit its quarterly results means a range of other chip makers will face trouble as well, according to analysts at Needham.
Needham’s Rajvindra Gill on Tuesday reduced his forecasts for revenue for a range of segments within Nvidia , Microchip , ON Semiconductor , NXP Semiconductors , GlobalFoundries and Silicon Laboratories . On the list are areas such as gaming, computing, smart mobile devices, and others.
Last week, Micron (ticker: MU) said it expects non-GAAP earnings of $1.63 a share from revenue of $7.2 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in August. Wall Street had been expecting $2.62 a share from $9.1 billion of revenue.
The company now expects unit sales of PCs to be down nearly 10% from 2021 versus a previous projection that sales would be flat. For smartphones, Micron expects unit sales to fall by a percentage in the mid-single digits, compared with its previous call for growth in the mid-single digits.
The move by Micron, which develops memory and storage solutions, plus broader weakness in the PC market, led Gill to lower his forecast for revenue at Nvidia ’s (NVDA) gaming segment for fiscal 2023. He now expects revenue from gaming to be down 10%, versus a projection of 7% growth earlier.
For Microchip Technology ( MCHP
), Gill cut his estimates more broadly across product lines. He estimates a 4.2% year-over-year revenue decline for fiscal 2023. Microchip ’s revenue is split among various segments like industrial, data center and computing, automotive, and more, he said.
Needham predicted that ON Semiconductor ’s automotive and industrial markets will remain strong over the medium term. Still, he reduced his forecast for fiscal 2022 revenue for the nonautomotive parts of the business to a decline of 20%, compared with a fall of 10% earlier, given rising headwinds in the chip maker’s consumer, computing, and communications markets. The non-auto, industrial segment generates 35% of sales, he said.
For NXP Semiconductors (NXPI), Gill reduced his overall estimate for revenue, citing its mobile and communications infrastructure segments, which make up about 28% of the total. He cut his forecast for fiscal 2022 revenue by roughly 6%, while his call for revenue in the mobile segment went from an increase of 11% to a drop of 14% for the fiscal 2022 year.
About 50% of GlobalFoundries
‘ ( GFS
) revenue is related to the mobile-phone market, Gill said. He lowered his revenue estimate for fiscal 2022 by 4%.
Silicon Laboratories
‘ (SLAB) consumer-oriented business, its Home and Life segment, includes products like smoke alarms, security systems, smart lighting, cameras, hubs, and appliances, areas where Gill believes the company may see additional headwinds. Home and Life accounts for 45% of revenue, Gill said, lowering his estimate of fiscal 2022 revenue by 4%.
Shares of Nvidia , ON Semiconductor and GlobalFoundries were all down by about 2% on Tuesday, while Silicon Laboratories was down by 3.5%. Both Microchip and NXP Semiconductors were down by more than 2.5%.
Write to Karishma Vanjani at [email protected]
