Semiconductor machinery manufacturer Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) will be reporting results this Thursday after the bell. Here’s what investors should know.

Applied Materials beat analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $9.12 billion, up 24.8% year on year. It was a favorable quarter for the company, with a significant improvement in its inventory levels and revenue guidance for next quarter exceeding analysts’ expectations.

Is Applied Materials a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, the market is expecting Applied Materials’s revenue to grow 51.9% year on year, a reversal from the 3.5% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business will stay the course heading into earnings. Applied Materials rarely misses Wall Street’s revenue estimates.

Looking at Applied Materials’s peers in the semiconductor manufacturing segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Entegris delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 24.6%, beating analysts’ expectations by 8.6%, and FormFactor reported revenues up 38.4%, topping estimates by 3.7%. Entegris traded down 3.1% following the results while FormFactor was also down 11.6%.

Read our full analysis of Entegris’s results here and FormFactor’s results here.

Over the last year or so, investors' attention has moved from one major market theme to the next, spanning AI disruption and surging infrastructure investment to geopolitical tensions, interest rates, and the health of the broader economy. Investors in semiconductor manufacturing stocks haven’t been spared in this environment as share prices are down 15.6% on average over the last month. Applied Materials is down 23.7% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $620.78 (compared to the current share price of $379.43).

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