Troubled Supermicro Surprised Wall Street with a Sales Forecast That Exceeded Even the Most Optimistic Estimates

Supermicro, an American server manufacturer whose co-founder has been accused of smuggling Nvidia chips, has forecast sales for the current quarter that no one on Wall Street had anticipated. Its full-year guidance also came in well above market expectations. Following the release of its quarterly report with the forecast, Supermicro’s stock rose more than it had at any point since the beginning of the year.

Supermicro released its financial guidance for the quarter ending in September after the close of regular trading in New York on August 11. Revenue, according to the company’s estimates, will total $14.5–15.5 billion, while analysts had expected an average of $12 billion, with the most optimistic forecast at $13.3 billion, Bloomberg reports. Supermicro estimates its adjusted earnings at $1.01–1.1 per share, compared with a consensus estimate of $0.74.

In the new fiscal year, which began in July, Supermicro expects revenue of $65–72 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $54.4 billion. The company’s guidance reflects its growing capabilities in AI, strong sales performance, and a modest improvement in gross margin, wrote Bloomberg analyst Woo Jin Ho.

During morning trading on August 12, Supermicro shares rose nearly 9%. By comparison, from the start of 2026 through the market close on August 11, they had gained 8%.

From April through June, Supermicro’s sales rose 93% to $11.1 billion, and adjusted earnings reached $1.70 per share. Year-over-year, earnings jumped 315%. Analysts had expected, on average, earnings of $0.92 per share on revenue of $11.6 billion, according to FactSet data cited by Investor’s Business Daily.

Supermicro is benefiting from the rapid growth in demand for equipment used to train and run artificial intelligence. Its servers are built using Nvidia chips, which have become the backbone of the vast majority of AI data centers. At the same time, the company is improving its profitability by focusing on higher-margin products and cutting costs, according to Bloomberg.

In July, Supermicro’s stock rose 20% in a single trading session following the release of its preliminary quarterly results. At that time, the company reported that its order backlog had reached a record high thanks to new contracts worth more than $60 billion, and that its margin was expected to exceed the initial forecast.

In March 2026, U.S. prosecutors charged Supermicro co-founder Yixian (“Wally”) Liao with illegally shipping servers containing Nvidia chips worth billions of dollars to China in circumvention of U.S. export restrictions. The company itself is not a defendant in the case and, according to its statement, is cooperating with the investigation. In late June, Taiwanese law enforcement officials raided Supermicro’s local offices and detained two of its employees, Bloomberg reports.

The company has been facing problems for several years now. In August 2024, short-seller Hindenburg Research accused Supermicro of accounting irregularities. Following that, Supermicro postponed the release of its annual financial statements, lost its auditor, and nearly got delisted from Nasdaq. While Supermicro’s stock price reached $122.9 per share in March 2024, it closed at $31.6 on August 11.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor