STMicroelectronics grew revenue 26 percent and pointed to an AI-driven acceleration later this year

Jean-Marc Chery said demand rose again. The chief executive of STMicroelectronics, the Geneva-based chipmaker whose products run cars, phones and industrial equipment, reported second-quarter revenue of $3.49bn on July 23, up 26.0 percent from a year earlier. Net income was $222m, or $0.24 a share. Gross margin was 34.8 percent.

The company guided to $3.70bn of revenue in the third quarter, a rise of about 6 percent from the second and 16 percent from a year earlier, with gross margin near 37 percent. It said that third-quarter margin includes about 70 basis points of charges for unused capacity. Chery said growth should accelerate again in the fourth quarter.

The reason he gave was demand from AI data centers and low-Earth-orbit satellite communications, which he expects to push fourth-quarter revenue above $4bn. On a non-GAAP basis, which the company also reports, net income was $291m, or $0.31 a share.