Marvell stock slumps after data center revenue, forecast disappoint

Shares of Marvell Technology plunged 18% on Friday after the artificial intelligence chipmaker’s data center revenue fell short of estimates and it gave lackluster guidance for the current quarter.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus estimates:

• Earnings per share: 67 cents adjusted vs. 66 cents expected
• Revenue: $2.01 billion vs. $2.01 billion expected

Revenue jumped 58% from a year ago in the fiscal second quarter that ended Aug. 2, a record for the company that was fueled in part by “strong AI demand” for its custom silicon and electro-optics products, Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said in a statement Thursday.

The company had net income of $194.8 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $193.3 million, a loss of 22 cents per share, during the same period last year.

For the fiscal third quarter, the company called for revenue to be $2.06 billion, plus or minus 5%. That was slightly below the $2.11 billion forecast by analysts, according to LSEG.

Marvell is known for creating customized chips and hardware, which it offers to cloud providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.

Sales in its data center segment reached $1.49 billion during the quarter, which fell short of Wall Street’s projected $1.51 billion, according to StreetAccount.

On a conference call with investors on Thursday, Murphy said the company expects “overall data center revenue in Q3 to be flat sequentially,” which he attributed to nonlinear growth in its custom AI chips business. Fourth-quarter growth is expected to be “substantially stronger” than the third quarter, Murphy said.

He added that “lumpiness” of the guidance is normal as large hyperscalers build out infrastructure.

Still, some investors were hoping for greater clarity on the company’s pipeline of new customers.

“Without this, we find it very difficult underwriting the company’s 20% data center market share target,” Cantor analysts wrote in a Thursday note to clients. “Thus, we wait for more bottoms up granularity before potentially turning more positive.”

Analysts at Bank of America downgraded Marvell’s stock to neutral from buy on Friday and lowered their price target to $78 per share from $90, partly on concerns around the company’s AI growth prospects “in the near/medium term.”