Lumentum Holdings blew past earnings expectations after the closing bell on Tuesday, continuing the optical-networking company's blazing hot run.
The strong results provide further evidence that optical technologies, which connect infrastructure within and between data centers, have become a crucial part of the artificial-intelligence boom.
The stock jumped 7.9% to $885 in Wednesday's premarket.
Lumentum posted adjusted earnings of $3.23 a share for its fiscal fourth quarter, up from 88 cents a year ago and above analysts' consensus estimates of $2.97. Revenue soared 109% from last year to $1.01 billion, ahead of Wall Street's call for $988 million.
The company expects adjusted earnings per share of $4.05 to $4.35 on revenue of $1.25 billion at the midpoint in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. Analysts had forecast adjusted earnings of $3.61 a share on $1.16 billion in revenue.
"Lumentum is positioned at the heart of a secular industry shift," said CEO Michael Hurlston in a statement. "As AI compute workloads increase in both speed and bandwidth, data center architects are turning to optical links as a primary means of connectivity."
Growing adoption of advanced 1.6-terabit transceivers and ultra-high-power lasers gave Lumentum a boost in the fourth quarter, Hurlston added. The company posted an adjusted operating margin of 36.6%, up from 32.2% the quarter before and 15% a year ago.
Lumentum shares have gained 586% over the last 12 months. They surged again last week after Reuters reported that the Federal Communications Commission is developing plans to ban imports of Chinese optical transceivers.
"The setup for optical stocks is a bit more challenging after last week's historic run," Daniel O'Regan, managing director at Mizuho Securities, wrote Tuesday.
Investors are ultimately hoping for swift and widespread adoption of co-packaged optics, which refers to placing optical transceivers in the same packaging as AI chips. The idea is that this architecture will make traditional copper connectors obsolete and make suppliers like Lumentum even more important.
Lumentum's customers are making progress toward co-packaged optics, Hurlston said, with demand expected to ramp up late next year. Meanwhile, the company is seeing strong demand for near-packaged optics, or NPO, which places the transceivers one piece of hardware away.
Close rival Coherent was up 5.4% ahead of Wednesday's opening bell, while Applied Optoelectronics added 3.8%.