Synaptics CEO Anticipates ‘Strong Growth’ in H2, with Help from IoT

“Breaking down its product mix, Synaptics says the mobile market accounted for 62 percent of its revenues, but that this segment was down 34 percent year-over-year. PC products, meanwhile, made up 15 percent of its revenues, while the Internet of Things accounted for 23 percent.”

Synaptics has issued its latest quarterly results, depicting a user interface specialist that has suffered to some extent from market pressures in the mobile biometrics sector, but is on track for growth in the second half.

For the quarter ended March 31st, Synaptics’ revenues came in at $394 million, an 11 percent drop from the $444.2 million in revenues the company saw over the same quarter a year ago. Synaptics also recorded a net loss for the quarter of $13.7 million, compared to a net income of $4.5 million a year ago.

That isn’t quite how Synaptics’ management looks at it, though. Synaptics’ own non-GAAP accounting excludes “share-based compensation, acquisition related costs, and certain other non-cash or recurring and non-recurring items the company does not believe are indicative of its core operating performance as a supplemental measure of operating performance,” according to a statement from the company. Removing things like its $26.9 million in acquisition costs, Synaptics reports a non-GAAP net income of $32.4 million for the quarter; and in commenting on the company’s overall results, CEO Rick Bergman pointed out that Synaptics has “achieved our third consecutive quarter of gross margin improvement,” which came in at 31.2 percent (GAAP), compared to 30.3 percent a year ago.

Breaking down its product mix, Synaptics says the mobile market accounted for 62 percent of its revenues, but that this segment was down 34 percent year-over-year. PC products, meanwhile, made up 15 percent of its revenues, while the Internet of Things accounted for 23 percent.

Despite Synaptics’ success in becoming the first fingerprint sensor maker to see its in-display technology delivered to market in a smartphone, it’s the IoT that will really drive business moving forward, Bergman suggested. Looking ahead, the company’s management “anticipate strong growth in the second half of the calendar year driven by seasonality and the rollout of new products,” while its “continuing transformation into a more diversified company, including growing momentum of our consumer IoT platform, is enabling us to focus our growth priorities on products providing greater opportunities for gross margin contribution and profitability as we move forward,” he said.