Silicon Motion price target raised to $85 from $75 at Needham

Needham raised the firm’s price target on Silicon Motion to $85 from $75 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm cites the company’s positive Q1 revenue pre-announcement, stating that the NAND pricing tailwinds and better than expected PC SSD and mobile eMMC/UFS shipments drove the upside. With gross margins coming in near the high-end of the guided range, the sales mix may have shifted slightly in favor of SSD controllers that carry better than corporate average margins, the analyst tells investors in a research note.