Texas Instruments shares soared 19% on Thursday—the chipmaker's best single-day performance since October 2000—after the company reported first-quarter results that blew past analyst estimates on every major metric and issued second-quarter guidance that signals the AI-driven analog chip supercycle is accelerating faster than even optimists expected.
Revenue for the first quarter came in at $4.83 billion, up 19% year over year and comfortably ahead of the $4.53 billion consensus estimate. Earnings per share of $1.68 topped the average forecast of $1.27 by more than 30 cents, delivering one of the largest EPS beats in the company's history. Shares closed at a record high and are now up 63% year-to-date.
Data Centers Surge 90%, Industrial Up 30%
CEO Haviv Ilan said on the earnings call that the company's data-center segment posted approximately 90% revenue growth from a year ago, a figure that stunned investors given that Texas Instruments had historically been viewed as an industrial and automotive chip supplier rather than an AI beneficiary. The industrial segment, long the company's core market, also rebounded sharply, growing 30% as manufacturers restocked inventories after a prolonged downcycle.
"Analog chips are the unsung heroes of the AI buildout," Ilan told analysts. "Every GPU rack, every power supply, every sensor in a data center runs on our components. We are now firmly inside the AI supply chain."
Q2 Guidance Raises the Bar Again
For the second quarter, Texas Instruments guided revenue of $5.0–$5.4 billion, representing approximately 17% growth at the midpoint versus the consensus of $4.74 billion. EPS is expected in the range of $1.77–$2.05. The guidance prompted a wave of analyst upgrades, with Citi, Barclays, and Morgan Stanley all raising price targets.
The results reinforce the view that the semiconductor rebound is broadening beyond pure-play AI chip designers to the entire ecosystem of enabling analog, power, and mixed-signal components—a development that could sustain elevated chip-sector valuations well into 2027.