Lattice Semiconductor Faces Continued Demand Headwinds But 3 Analysts Are Optimistic

Shares of Lattice Semiconductor Corp LSCC declined by 6.45% to $71.90 at last check on Tuesday after the company reported its first-quarter results.

The results came amid an exciting earnings season. Here are some key analyst takeaways from the release.

• Benchmark analyst David Williams reiterated a Buy rating, while raising the price target from $80 to $85.
• Stifel analyst Ruben Roy maintained a Hold rating and price target of $87.
• KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst John Vinh reaffirmed an Overweight rating and price target of $85.

Check out other analyst stock ratings.

Benchmark: "We think the company's strategy and positioning is enabling the firm to navigate the downturn, outperforming peers by a wide margin as demonstrated by the 17% YoY revenue decline in 1Q vs Altera's 58%," Williams said in a note.

Lattice Semiconductor guided to revenues of $130 million at the midpoint. It missed the consensus estimate of $140.5 million, the analyst stated. "Although the 2Q outlook is disappointing, our thesis remains unchanged with strengthening tailwinds from strong design win traction, new product ramps, and share gains," he further wrote.  

Stifel: Although Lattice Semiconductor reported its first-quarter results broadly in-line with expectations, the company provided a softer-than-anticipated outlook, with continued demand weakness, particularly in the communications infrastructure end markets, Roy said. "In other markets, like Industrials customers continue to normalize their inventory levels," he added.

"Despite the persistent near-term weakness, LSCC expects a stronger second half as new Nexus and Avant products ramp, inventory re-balancing concludes in most end markets and some demand improvement begins later this year," the analyst wrote. He further stated that management "continues to execute on strong profitability metrics despite significantly lower y/y revenue," driving healthy free cash flow margin.

KeyBanc Capital Markets: Lattice Semiconductor witnessed "the correction deepen further" across its communications, industrial, and auto segments, "while computing was robust," Vinh said. While EU was the weakest region in the first quarter, North America was in line with corporate average, and Asia benefited from server demand, he added.

Although management has lowered their second-quarter expectation to a sequential decline of 8%, the company is expected to recover in the back half of the year, supported by normalization of customer inventories and new product ramps from Avant and Nexus, the analyst further stated.

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