News

Vicor Reports Revenue Decline in First Quarter of 2019

April 23, 2019 by Paul Shepard

Vicor Corporation reported that revenues for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 totaled $65.7 million, a 0.7% increase from $65.3 million for the corresponding period a year ago, and a 10.8% sequential decrease from $73.7 million the fourth quarter of 2018.

Gross margin increased to $31.1 million for the first quarter of 2019, compared to $30.2 million for the corresponding period a year ago, and decreased sequentially from $33.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2018.  Gross margin, as a percentage of revenue, increased to 47.3% for the first quarter of 2019, compared to 46.3% for the corresponding period a year ago, and increased from 45.9% for the fourth quarter of 2018.

Net income for the first quarter was $4.3 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, compared to net income of $3.9 million or $0.10 per diluted share, for the corresponding period a year ago and net income of $6.9 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2018.

After payments for recently installed production equipment, cash and cash equivalents sequentially decreased by $4.0 million to approximately $66.6 million at the end of the first quarter of 2019, from $70.6 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018.  Incremental capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2019 totaled $3.3 million, down from $11.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2018 and up from $1.9 million for the corresponding period a year ago.

First quarter bookings decreased 18.7% to $66.6 million, from $81.9 million for the corresponding period a year ago, but increased sequentially 10.2% from $60.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2018.  Total backlog at the end of the first quarter of 2019 was $103.8 million, up 0.8 % from $103.0 million at the end of 2018.

Commenting on first quarter performance, Dr. Patrizio Vinciarelli, Chief Executive Officer, stated, “As anticipated, Q1 revenue was sequentially lower, reflecting reduced demand for Advanced Products from a pause in datacenter build-out and inventory correction ahead of next generation servers and GPUs.  While Q2 demand for Advanced Products remains weak, our penetration of servers, supercomputing, and AI accelerators is gaining momentum, with major design wins for NBMs and Lateral Power Delivery solutions entering production in the second half of 2019. We are also seeing early traction for our Vertical Power Delivery systems. Owing to its superior power density, Power-on-Package is the solution of choice for high performance, demanding processor applications, notably in AI acceleration.”

Dr. Vinciarelli continued, “The transition from 12V to 48V infrastructure is gaining momentum in the cloud and automotive segments, setting the stage for broad adoption of power distribution architectures, power conversion engines, control systems, and packaging technologies that Vicor invented and comprehensively patented over the last 15 years.”

Concluding his remarks, Dr. Vinciarelli stated, “Our outlook for 2019 is a positive progression from quarter to quarter, with firming demand for brick products and, heading into the second half of the year, growth from advanced products. We also expect design wins from the roll out of 4G control across our Advanced Products families, further extending the performance gap and total power system scalability that set Vicor apart from ‘competitive’ solutions at the point-of-load and in ac front ends.”