Mobileye beats quarterly revenue estimates on resilient self-driving chip demand

(Reuters) -Mobileye Global beat Wall Street expectations for third-quarter revenue on Thursday, as automakers ramped up orders of the company's driver-assisted chips in a rush to adopt autonomous software. The company is seeing a surge in demand for its self-driving systems after a prolonged slump as its customers clear inventory. Mobileye's customers had stocked up to avoid a shortage during the pandemic. "Continued auto production stability gives us confidence to again raise our full-year outlook, removing conservatism we had embedded earlier due to macro uncertainty," said Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua. The company also added Volvo as a new customer, executives said on a post-earnings conference call. Still, even as demand grows, economic uncertainty lingers as the imposition of tariffs on imports of automobiles and parts has pressured many of Mobileye's customers, forcing them to readjust supply chains. Mobileye previously said it would not be directly impacted by the duties. Company executives cautioned about margin pressure next year as Mobileye ramps up volume shipments of lower-margin products, but said they would improve in 2027 as product mix shifts to higher margin chips. The chipmaker, of which Intel is the largest shareholder, has previously flagged revenue potential from the robotaxi industry as several firms eye a larger portion of the fledgling market. Mobileye has been collaborating with firms such as Lyft to roll out autonomous taxis – which analysts say will be increasingly competitive in a few years with a large market. The company reported third-quarter revenue of $504 million, beating estimates of $480.9 million, according to data compiled by LSEG. The company raised the lower end of its annual revenue forecast. It now expects annual revenue of between $1.85 billion and $1.89 billion, compared with its prior projection of between $1.77 billion and $1.89 billion. (Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)

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