Shares of Mobileye Global Inc. climbed more than 7% today after the company posted strong financial results for its third quarter ended Sept. 30.

Mobileye sells chips that automakers use to equip their vehicles with partly autonomous driving features. It’s also developing a hardware and software system, Chauffeur, that is intended to power fully autonomous cars. The system is set to go into production in 2026.

Mobileye was acquired by Intel Corp. in 2017 for $15.3 billion. Four years later, the chip giant took it public at a significantly higher $24 billion valuation. Intel continues to be the company’s majority stakeholder.

Mobileye’s revenue climbed 18% year-over-year, to $530 million, in the third quarter. That’s above the $527.8 million analysts surveyed by the London Stock Exchange had projected. However, Mobileye missed the Zacks revenue estimate by fraction of a percent. 

The company attributed its third-quarter sales jump mainly to increased demand for its flagship EyeQ vehicle chips. Customers not only purchased more processors, Mobileye detailed, but also paid a higher price per unit. The company’s customer base includes Ford Motor Co., BMW AG and other major automakers.

Mobileye debuted its newest and most advanced vehicle chip, the EyeQ6H, last year. It provides three times the performance of the company’s previous flagship processor using 25% more power. Another departure from Mobileye’s earlier silicon is that automakers can install custom software on the EyeQ6H to implement features such as automatic parking.

The EyeQ6H is a system-on-chip, or SOC, made using a seven-nanometer manufacturing process. It includes a central processing unit, a graphics processing unit and several accelerators designed to speed up artificial intelligence models. Mobileye says that the EyeQ6H can provide performance of 34 TOPs, or trillion operations per second, for vehicles’ onboard AI software.

Mobileye’s revenue growth in the third quarter helped boost its earnings. The company’s adjusted net income jumped 59% year-over-year, to $181 million, which translated to adjusted earnings of 22 cents per share. Analysts polled by Zacks were expecting 17 cents. 

“We are very pleased with Q3 results, as operating leverage on strong revenue growth has led to significant increases in operating income,” said Mobileye Chief Executive Officer Amnon Shashua.

Mobileye has upgraded its earnings outlook for 2023 and now expects a narrower operating loss of $62 million to $79 million. Last quarter, it projected a full-year loss of between $98 million and $129 million. Mobileye has also trimmed the upper end of its full-year revenue guidance by $20 million and now expects sales of $2.07 billion to $2.09 billion. 

Photo: Mobileye