NAND flash device controller supplier Silicon Motion Technology has reported slight sequential growth in net sales for the first quarter of 2015, driven by rising sales of client SSD controllers and stable growth in sales of eMMC chips.

Silicon Motion posted net sales of US$80.6 million in the first quarter, up slightly from US$80.5 million in the fourth quarter, bucking seasonal trends. Gross margin for the quarter stayed high at 52%, while net profits came to US$16.6 million or US$0.48 per diluted ADS.

"We are off to a solid start in 2015. Our first quarter revenue benefited from strong client SATA 3 SSD controller sales momentum and stable eMMC controller sales," said Wallace Kou, president and CEO of Silicon Motion.

Silicon Motion saw its client SSD controller sales double sequentially in the first quarter. The product line now accounts for over 10% of Silicon Motion's total revenues, with monthly shipments exceeding one million units in March, the company disclosed.

"This quarter, our module maker customers aggressively built SSDs for channel markets," Kou continued. "Micron and another NAND flash partner ramped sales of their SSDs with our controllers to both channel and OEM markets, and we expect a new major SSD program with our controllers, again for both channel and OEM markets, to begin shipping in the second quarter."

In addition, Silicon Motion with its SSD controllers continues to expand its presence in the PC field. "Our storage OEM partner began shipping SSDs to three global tier-1 PC OEMs in the first quarter and recently started shipping to two additional OEMs," Kou noted.

Silicon Motion also revealed that the company began shipping its MCP single-package Ferri solutions for in-car infotainment systems to a major German car vendor. "Our overall embedded products sales rebounded to well over half of total sales," Kou said.

Looking forward, Silicon Motion expects its second-quarter revenues to increase 5-10% sequentially with gross margin to be between 50% and 52%. For all of 2015, the company expects to post revenue growth of 17-25% on year with gross margin to be in the 49.5% and 51.5% range.

"The fundamentals of our business have never been stronger and we are excited about starting the next chapter of our growth," Kou believes. "And with the proposed addition of Shannon Systems, we will be entering the world's largest Internet market and will become one of the leading suppliers of enterprise SSDs to leading Chinese Internet companies."

Silicon Motion recently announced the company has entered into an agreement to acquire Shannon Systems, a supplier of enterprise-class PCIe SSD and storage array solutions to China's e-commerce, cloud computing and other industries. Silicon Motion expects to complete its Shannon acquisition by the end of July 2015.

By: DocMemory
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