Revenues at Silicon Motion Technology climbed to a record US$77.1 million in the third quarter of 2012, up 11% on quarter and beating company guidance of 5-8% growth. The firm also saw its diluted earnings per ADS (non-GAAP) reach a record US$0.54 in the quarter, compared to the US$0.42 posted in the second quarter.

Sales of LTE and SSD plus embedded products increased 39% sequentially in the third quarter, driven by strong orders for LTE transceivers for the Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone series, as well as orders for eMMC controllers placed by other smartphone OEMs, the company revealed. The new product segments accounted for a combined 40% of company revenues in the third quarter, up from 32% in the second quarter.

"This year we have more than doubled the number of LTE design-wins with Samsung and are working to secure additional LTE design-wins that should provide the foundation for further growth next year," said Wallace Kou, CEO and president for Silicon Motion, in a statement. "Separately, this year we started delivering our eMMC controllers to both Samsung and SK Hynix and have design-wins with at least half of the top 10 smartphone OEMs and in a majority of the leading Android and Windows 8 tablets."

Silicon Motion will see its share of the global eMMC market expand to 15-20% in 2013 from 5-10% in 2012, Kou indicated.

In addition, Silicon Motion's card controller business rebounded with a 21% sequential increase in the third quarter, as its OEM customers increased procurement of controllers specifically for bundled cards, the firm disclosed. However, the growth was unable to offset weakness seen in Silicon Motion's other core products, principally USB flash drive controllers, mobile TV solutions, and CDMA EV-DO transceivers for the China market, Kou continued.

In the third quarter, mobile storage products including flash memory cards, USB flash drives, SSD and embedded flash controllers accounted for 68% of Silicon Motion's overall revenues. Sales generated from the segment registered only 4% sequential growth in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, Silicon Motion saw sales of mobile communication products including handset transceivers and mobile TV IC solutions climbed 40%sequentially in the third quarter. The segment accounted for 28% of company revenues in the quarter.

Silicon Motion posted a gross margin (non-GAAP) of 46.4% in the third quarter, down from 49.1% in the second quarter, while net profits increased to US$18.7 million from US$14.6 million in the prior quarter.

"Our third quarter sales were stronger than expected principally because of accelerated LTE transceiver orders by Samsung. While originally we were anticipating sequential revenue growth in the fourth quarter, we are now anticipating a slight decrease due to some LTE transceiver sales planned for the fourth quarter having been sold in the third quarter," Kou said. "We are expecting modest growth from our card controllers and similar revenue from our eMMC controllers in the fourth quarter. Based on our fourth quarter revenue guidance, our full year revenue should grow 25 to 27%."

Silicon Motion expects its fourth-quarter revenue to be down 3% to 9% sequentially with gross margin in the 44-46% range.