Marvell Technology (MRVL) CEO Matt Murphy on Wednesday painted an optimistic long-term picture for the semiconductor company, suggesting that Wall Street has recently misjudged both the Club holding’s present performance and future prospects. “The long-term opportunity for this company … is tremendous because if you think about the end markets that we participate in — forget about share gain, forget about new product cycle. Just look at the end markets,” Murphy told Jim Cramer in an interview. “The markets that Marvell is targeting are growing significantly faster than almost any other set of end markets you could focus on, and we don’t have the consumer, drag which is problematic in an environment like today,” the chief executive said, noting only about 10% of Marvell’s revenue falls into consumer categories like printers and personal computers. That’s where much of the chip industry’s weakness has been concentrated this year. By contrast, Murphy said the company’s most important underlying markets — like data center, 5G and automotive — have been resilient, even as Marvell shares have tumbled around 45% year to date. Higher interest rates and economic slowdown concerns have weighed on stocks across the chip industry. “The end markets, they have a big determination on a company’s performance, especially in a cycle like this,” he added. Data center Marvell’s data center revenue grew 48% year over year to $643.4 million in the second quarter but missed estimates. The segment represented 42% of the firm’s overall sales in the three months ended July 30. While Marvell’s on-premise data division is seeing some softness, its cloud-focused unit is holding up better. That’s important because cloud is the star of the show. It is where the secular tailwinds are blowing. Murphy on Wednesday expressed confidence about the fundamental direction of the company’s business large-scale cloud customers. Here’s what he told Cramer: “What we have that is unique to us is our own unique product cycles. We’ve won actually meaningful new business in cloud-optimized custom silicon; high-performance networking chips like switches; all the optical interconnect from Inphi, the acquisition that we [closed in 2021]; plus, storage, security. I mean, I could go on and on,” Murphy said. “We’ve got like 12 product lines that sell into the cloud, and all these new ramps are coming. They’re still in front of us, starting next year, and then a big increase the year after. That’s the long-term view of this.” Automotive Automotive/industrial is the smallest of the five end markets for which Marvell reports results. While jumping 46%, it contributed a less-than-expected $83.6 million to second-quarter revenue, making it just 6% of overall sales. Nevertheless, Murphy told Cramer the company sees ample opportunity to expand that business as the automotive industry gets more technologically advanced. Its current performance is “phenomenal,” he said. The CEO offered a detailed look at that opportunity and an explanation of how Marvell’s auto business differs from Club holdings Nvidia (NVDA) and Qualcomm (QCOM), which is set to hold its automotive investor day on Thursday. “If you look at Qualcomm or Nvidia or some of the others, they’re doing the brains of the car. Think of Marvell as the nervous system. We’re the connectivity inside the car, the network. We work with those big computing companies that are doing self-driving chips and infotainment, things like that. We actually provide all of the connectivity inside the car, which is moving to Ethernet,” Murphy said. While Ethernet networks are hardly a new technology, their presence inside cars is a relatively new development that bodes well for Marvell. The company deploys Ethernet switches in data centers, the telecommunications industry and corporate networks. Currently, a “very small” percentage of cars contain Ethernet networks, according to Murphy. “Every car company is moving to as the de facto, standard for the in-car network of the future. You have to because you need the speed, you need the reliability, you need the security,” he said. “On an Ethernet network, you can effectively do what’s called multidrop. You can have all these different components inside the car on a common network, versus today. There’s literally hundreds of pounds of cabling connecting all these different [electronic control units] inside the vehicles. We actually made it possible to strip away the cable cost and make the network much more efficient and quick and reliable. … It’s all in front of us.” (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long MRVL, NVDA and QCOM. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Source: Business - cnbc.com
