Universal Display (OLED) Misses Q4 EPS by 12c, Sales Miss

Universal Display (NASDAQ: OLED) reported Q4 EPS of $0.39, $0.12 worse than the analyst estimate of $0.51. Revenue for the quarter came in at $62.3 million versus the consensus estimate of $71.54 million.

“Our fourth quarter results were less-than-anticipated, which we believe was primarily due to year-end inventory management by our customers and product mix weighing more to our lower priced emitters,” said Sidney D. Rosenblatt, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Universal Display. “As we have noted in the past, short-term forecasting in this emerging OLED market environment is difficult, even though we are confident that this is a long-term growth market. While 2015 revenues were flat year-over-year, we are pleased to report that our commercial emitter sales increased 16% and our royalty and licensing revenues grew 23% year-over-year. We also generated $113.6 million of cash from operations, more than doubling 2014's operating cash flow of $47.3 million."

Rosenblatt continued, "We believe that 2016 is poised to be a year in which the OLED industry builds meaningful new capacity for the continued proliferation of OLEDs in the marketplace. This groundwork is paving the foundation for the next wave of expansion in OLED mass production, which we believe is set to commence in 2017. As noted by a number of companies in the ecosystem, the OLED design pipeline is growing robustly, and we anticipate that this will drive new capacity plans for 2017, 2018 and beyond. As a key enabler and partner in the OLED industry, we expect these additional capacity plans to result in new revenue opportunities, and overall, a positive growth trajectory for the industry."

2016 Guidance

Although the OLED industry is still at an early state where many variables can have a material impact on its growth, and the Company thus caveats its financial guidance accordingly, the Company believes that its 2016 revenues will increase 15% year-over-year, plus or minus 5%, as compared to 2015.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Universal Display (OLED) click here.

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