Data center server maker Super Micro Computer Inc. is flying high today, its stock up more than 10% in after-hours trading after reporting solid fiscal third-quarter results.

The company reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of $1.55 per share, generating net income of $77 million for the quarter. Revenue for the quarter came to $1.36 billion, up from $895.8 million in the same period one year ago. The results were better than expected, with Wall Street modeling earnings of $1.45 on sales of $1.23 billion.

Super Micro’s stock gained almost 11% in the extended trading session, adding to a 2% rise earlier in the day.

Super Micro Chairman and Chief Executive Charles Liang (pictured) said it was the fourth successive quarter in which the company delivered more than a billion dollars in revenue.

“With a trailing-four-quarter revenue run rate of $4.6 billion, it gives me strong confidence that we are well ahead of our long-term targets,” Liang said. “Our robust growth and EPS progress demonstrates the efficiency of our global operational leverage and our customers recognizing the value of our rack-scale Total IT Solutions in key market segments across AI, enterprise, cloud, edge/telco and others.”

Super Micro sells energy-efficient and application-optimized rack mount and blade computer servers and other hardware such as storage equipment for corporate data centers. Its customers include both hyperscale data center operators and enterprises that run their own on-premises data centers.

Although hardware sales are obviously of critical importance to the company, investors may well have been more impressed with Super Micro’s overall increased profitability, which was exemplified by its improved gross margin. The company reported a gross margin of 15.5% in the quarter, versus 14% in the second quarter and 13.7% during the same period one year ago.

Investors no doubt cheered Super Micro’s optimism for the months ahead too. For the next quarter, the company offered a confident outlook, saying it expects revenue in a range of $1.4 billion to $1.48 billion. That’s way above the consensus estimate of $1.21 billion.

Super Micro also raised its full-year fiscal 2022 forecast. It said it now expects total revenue for the year of between $4.96 billion and $5.04 billion, up from an earlier range of $4.2 billion to $4.6 billion. Analysts currently have Super Micro’s full-year sales pegged at $4.65 billion.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE that server makers are benefiting from a post-pandemic demand for more computing capacity that has erupted over much of the enterprise. Like most others, Super Micro is fully participating in that trend, he said.

“Super Micro delivered strong revenue growth of 50%, but what is really encouraging is the way it managed to grow while spending more on research and development than it did on its sales and marketing and general and administrative expenses combined,” Mueller continued. “The result is that Super Micro has managed to squeeze out an extra dollar per share in income compared to what it delivered one year ago. The next milestone for Super Micro is to try and crack the $5 billion revenue barrier, which is a target it’s optimistic of achieving.”

Photo: Archangel Ancient Tree Archive/YouTube