Ambarella Profit Tops Street As Revenue Climbs 27% - Update

(RTTNews) - Semiconductor company Ambarella Inc. (AMBA), Thursday reported a higher fourth-quarter profit, helped by a near 27 percent increase in revenue and improved margins, with both earnings and revenue topping Wall Street estimates.

Nevertheless, investors were not overly impressed with the performance and dragged Ambarella down by about 5 percent in the initial after-hours trade on the Nasdaq. The stock subsequently pulled back a bit to trade lower by about 3 percent.

Ambarella develops semiconductor processing solutions for video that enable high-definition video capture, sharing, and display.

The Santa Clara, California-based company posted fourth-quarter net earnings of $5.5 million or $0.18 per share, compared with $3.6 million or $0.13 per share last year.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $8 million or $0.26 per share, compared with $5 million or $0.18 per share a year ago.

On average, five analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.19 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenue for the quarter climbed to $40 million from $31.5 million in the prior year, topping analysts' estimates of $38.1 million.

Results were also helped by gross margin that was up 80 basis points at 64 percent.

Durind the quarter, Ambarella introduced innovative surround-view solutions for the automotive market and collaborated with Google to explore new opportunities in wearable cameras.

Ambarella stock closed Thursday at $34.03, down $0.65 or 1.87%, on a volume of about 2 million shares. In after hours, the stock dropped $1.03 or 3.03% at $33.00.