By Arsheeya Bajwa
(Reuters) - Mobileye Global (NASDAQ:MBLY) beat quarterly profit estimates on Thursday on resilient demand for its autonomous driving technology, sending its shares 8% higher in early trading.
The Israel-based company, whose customers include Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p) and Porsche, also narrowed its forecast range for annual operating loss.
It expects operating loss for the year to be between $62 million and $79 million, versus its prior loss view of $98 million to $129 million.
The results show the Intel-controlled company was broadly benefiting from growing EV sales in the U.S. and recovering demand in one of its biggest markets - China.
EV sales in the U.S. jumped to more than 300,000 for the first time in the third quarter, according to Cox Automotive. Car sales in China increased 4.7% in September from the year earlier, official data showed.
But high interest rates and an uncertain economy are now forcing certain automakers to be cautious about expanding EV production capacity, which might hurt orders for some of the higher-priced tech Mobileye sells.
The company trimmed the upper end of annual revenue forecast — a move head of investor relations, Dan Galves, blamed on lowered expectations for its new SuperVision advanced driver-assist system, which generates around $1,300 per unit in revenue.
"It was... a very small number of units that we took out of the forecast," he said, adding that the expectation was now for 102,000 versus its original expectation of 107,000.
Mobileye forecasts total annual revenue to be between $2.07 billion and $2.09 billion, compared with $2.07 billion to $2.11 billion projected earlier. It reiterated it does not expect any impact from the Middle East conflict.
Revenue in the third quarter was $530 million, compared with analysts' estimate of $527.8 million, according to LSEG data. Its adjusted profit of 22 cents per share beat estimates of 17 cents.