NXP Semiconductors soars 26%, paces for its best day ever after earnings beat

nxp semiconductors jumped 26% on wednesday, heading for its best day since going public in 2010. the dutch chipmaker reported q1 earnings tuesday that beat wall street estimates across the board. adjusted earnings came in at $3.05 per share, above the $2.95 lseg consensus. revenue hit $3.18 billion, up 12% year-over-year and slightly ahead of the $3.16 billion forecast. ceo rafael sotomayor credited growth to "industrial and automotive processing that supports software-defined vehicles and physical ai." nxp doesn't make gpus like nvidia or amd. its chips handle power, cooling, and security tasks in data centers rather than ai compute. the company reported about $200 million in data center revenue last year, with sotomayor projecting over $500 million by 2026. analysts raised price targets after the report. td cowen went from $250 to $310. morgan stanley bumped its target to $335 from $299, with analyst joseph moore noting "clearer visibility now around execution." the vaneck semiconductor etf (smh) has climbed roughly 30% this month.