Marvell's Upbeat 2Q View Fires Up Stock

Shares of Marvell Technologies (NASDAQ:MRVL) spiked 12% Friday morning as Wall Street applauds the chip maker’s bullish quarterly guidance and hope it signals the company has turned a corner.

After Thursday’s closing bell, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company projected second-quarter non-GAAP EPS of 37 cents, plus or minus a couple of pennies, on sales of $870 million to $910 million. That compares favorably with the Street’s call for EPS of 34 cents on sales of $875 million.

Mobile revenue is seen soaring 20% from the first quarter and non-GAAP gross margins are expected to range between 58% and 58.5%.

Shareholders mostly waved off Marvell’s weaker-than-expected first-quarter results, especially because the company's slumping stock price already reflected the disappointing figures. Marvell's net income dropped 29% and its non-GAAP EPS of 29 cents missed forecasts by a penny. Sales slid 6.2% to $802.4 million, trailing estimates for $825.6 million as mobile sales slumped 30% versus the fourth quarter.

"The results for our first quarter reflected the typical seasonality of our consumer centric end markets," CEO Sehat Sutardja said in a statement. "Even at this low point in the revenue cycle, we were an industry leader in profitability for both operating and cash flow margins, demonstrating the strength of our long-term business model.”

Some analysts were less enthusiastic on Friday as Caris lowered its price target on Marvell to $21 from $23 and S&P Equity cut its target to $19 from $17.

That didn’t stop Marvell’s beaten-down stock from surging 11.97% to $16.28 Friday morning, trimming its 2011 loss to 21.5%.