Corsair Gaming reports Q2 EPS (7c), consensus 5c

Reports Q revenue $261.3M, consensus $290.3M. Andy Paul, CEO, stated, “Clearly we are disappointed by our Q2 2024 results, which were driven by a softer-than-expected self-built PC market. The surge of activity during the COVID lock-down period, where the number of gaming PCs that were built approximately doubled from the prior year, and headset sales almost tripled, which we believe means that the installed base of gaming hardware is now at an all-time high. Even with this surge, we now are seeing the market for headsets, which is usually the entry point for first-time gaming hardware purchases, almost twice the size of the market before COVID lock-downs. We believe this shows the gaming market is continuing to grow. For the self-built PC market, where our components and memory product lines are used, we see the market a little softer than it was pre COVID, but we believe it is still at a healthy level. We are expecting an ‘echo’ of the COVID surge to occur as we move into a natural refresh cycle, which based on prior cycles is typically a 3 to 5 year period. This is very dependent on consumer spending power, inflation, and of course new games and the timing of new graphics hardware. Our expectation last year was that this coming refresh surge would happen in 2024 through 2026, 3 to 5 years after the COVID lock-down. It now appears that is more likely going to start a little later than expected, since we expect to see new GPUs from NVIDIA launching around the end of 2024, with many highly anticipated games expected to launch in late 2024 and 2025, notably Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 later this year and Grand Theft Auto VI in 2025. This will affect our sales of products in our Gaming Components and Systems segment and we have reforecast this accordingly. For Q2 2024, we did see some adjustments downwards of our channel inventory in our Memory product line, meaning that the sales out of our channel were ahead of our sales in by approximately 15%. “In our Gamer and Creator Peripherals segment, we are seeing strong growth. While the market for those products is showing slight improvement, we also continue to launch products in new categories. Notably, this year we launched teleprompters, PC controllers and mobile controllers, as well as many other innovative new products in our existing categories. We also announced our entry into the Sim racing market, with our own designed products, which we recently showcased at Computex. We remain interested in the Sim racing brand Fanatec, owned by ENDOR AG. Although we were disappointed to see the company file for insolvency, we intend to continue exploring a potential acquisition. Such acquisition would likely be within the framework of the pending insolvency proceedings, and as a result, we cannot provide any assurance our bid will be successful. Q2 2024 was another good quarter for this segment as it grew by 19.6% YoY, which is the third successive quarter of strong, high-teens to 20% growth. We intend to continue to grow the Gamer and Creator Peripherals segment organically, as well as with strategic acquisitions. We believe this business has the potential to become larger than our traditional components business within a few years. For our Gaming Components and Systems segment, which includes our memory business, we continue to dominate the market with leading market share in most categories. We intend to continue that trend, while running these businesses as efficiently as we can from a cost standpoint, while we wait for the market to recover and return to growth.”