Skyworks financials reveal the cost of working with Huawei

Mobile chip maker Skyworks solutions has released its financial results for the third quarter of 2019, with a $127 million hole in comparison to the same period of 2018.

In most circumstances, a 16% drop in revenues for a three-month period would send the office into meltdown. Executives and shareholders will of course not be thrilled, but this downturn was expected by pretty much everyone involved; this is the cost of doing business with Huawei.

As you can see from the table below, there are certainly some numbers which will cause a persistent twitch.

What is worth noting is that there are factors contributing to this downturn outside the Huawei saga. Semiconductor sales across the world are in a trough currently, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) unveiled quarterly figures earlier this week, with the global smartphone shipments impacting financials everywhere.

Perhaps due to a lack of innovation in the smartphone arena or consumers afraid of purchasing new devices with a new ‘G’ on the horizon, shipments have declined. History suggests this is cycler, though the depressed states of affairs can also be contributed to Huawei business.

Skyworks solutions is one of those businesses which is in a somewhat difficult position. There might a brief reprieve for those working with Huawei, though the damage has clearly been done.

In entering Huawei onto the Entity List, effectively banning any US company from working with the Chinese vendor, President Trump released a wave of collateral damage. Skyworks was not one of the worst effected, though as you can see there clearly is friendly fire from the White House.

During last years Annual Report, Skyworks told investors Huawei was one of three firms which accounted for more than 10% of annual revenues. With a third of generated revenues being attributed to three companies, this is not the healthiest position, but in the smartphone segment it is largely unavoidable; there aren’t than many manufacturers after all.

Interestingly enough, while the firm did beat market expectations, this does not seem to have diluted fears from investors.

The management team has greenlit a 16% increase of dividend payments, while there is hope it might be able to continue work with Huawei, but investors are seemingly voting with their feet. At the time of writing, share price declined by almost 7.4% in overnight trading.

This is not a firm which will cease to exist because of these negative events, however it is wounded right now. Huawei is a massive customer for the team and an account which was only getting more profitable as Huawei grew its global smartphone market share. This is not the beginning of the end, but it doesn’t make for the most comfortable reading.