Shares of Advantest Corp., a Japanese maker of semiconductor testing equipment seen as a key beneficiary of the artificial intelligence boom, are now trading as expensive as those of Nvidia Corp.
But contrasting developments at the two firms are causing their price-to-earnings valuations to converge. Nvidia’s earnings estimates jumped in the wake of its blowout AI-fueled results Thursday, pushing its forward PE multiple down to 35 times compared with over 60 in May.
A dismal profit report at Advantest last month, meanwhile, caused its valuation to climb to around the same level due to a reduction in analyst projections.
Both shares have soared this year, with the Japanese company’s stock price doubling while the US chipmaker’s has more than tripled. While Advantest supplies testing equipment to Nvidia, that accounts for less than 1% of its total sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, limiting the benefits it gets from the US company’s surging AI-related revenue.
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“Advantest’s share price got way ahead of its fundamentals after its executives were talking about the potential growth from AI which suddenly made this Japan’s AI play, which clearly is not the case looking at its first-quarter numbers,” said Amir Anvarzadeh, a strategist at Asymmetric Advisors.
