SuperMicro Shares Surge on Positive Earnings

supermicro-fattwin

One of Super Micro's Fat Twin servers, which the company says can operate at higher ambient temperatures of up to 47 degrees C (116 degrees F). Strong sales of Fat Twin boosted SMCI's earnings. (Photo: Super Micro)

Shares of server vendor Super Micro Computer (SMCI) soared nearly 19 percent Wednesday in trading on the NASDAQ stock market after the company reported earnings that exceeded the expectations of the analyst community. Super Micro reported revenue in the quarter of $291.5 million, well above the $280 million consensus among securities analysts. The company also issued strong guidance for the next quarter.

On the strength of that report, investors bought up Super Micro shares, which gained $1.96 to close at $12.49 a share, an increase of 18.6 percent. Volume was 1.57 million shares, well above the average volume of 207,000 shares traded per session.

“Net sales were a record high this quarter as we achieved 16.6% growth over last year, further demonstrating our ability to grow market share even during uncertain economic times,” CEO Charles Liang said in a statement. “Our rackmount servers, especially FatTwin solutions, and our storage products were key drivers of our revenue this quarter. Profitability improved due to slightly better margins and better operating expense leverage."

Liang said sales had been particularly strong for FatTwin servers optimized for Hadoop-based cloud applications. SuperMicro says the FatTwin can operate in higher ambient temperatures of up to 47 degrees C (116 degrees F), allowing users to save energy and slash their total cost of ownership.