Bank Of America Upgrades Qorvo, But Projects Limited Upside

Qorvo Inc QRVO's fiscal third-quarter earnings may have disappointed some investors, but the company's announcement of a significant design win for its integrated power-amp-duplexer, or SuperPAD, in Apple Inc. AAPL's upcoming iPhone turned one Wall Street analyst incrementally more positive on Qorvo.

The Analyst

Bank Of America's Vivek Arya upgraded Qorvo's stock rating from Underperform to Neutral with a price target boosted from $60 to $85.

The Thesis

Qorvo's confirmation of the Apple win could not only reaccelerate its sales in the bottom half of 2018, but prompt rival smartphone manufacturers like Samsung to become customers in 2019 and beyond, Arya said in the upgrade note.

But investors should balance Qorvo's Apple win with its past execution record and the "complexity" associated with manufacturing the new SuperPAD components, which could weigh on margins, the analyst said. There are no guarantees that Qorvo will be remain a key Apple supplier indefinitely — and the company did see a partial loss of the content in current generation iPhones, Arya said. 

Some Wall Street analysts are expressing concern that iPhone's demand trends aren't as strong as investors hoped, the analyst said. BofA's $85 price target is based on a 16x 2018 P/E, which is already at the top end of the stock's 8x to 16x historical multiple.

Price Action

Shares of Qorvo hit a new multiyear high of $85.24 Thursday morning and were last seen trading at $81.57, up nearly 14 percent on the day.

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Photo courtesy of Apple.