Quarterly earnings results are a good time to check in on a company’s progress, especially compared to its peers in the same sector. Today we are looking at Entegris (NASDAQ:ENTG) and the best and worst performers in the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

The semiconductor industry is driven by demand for advanced electronic products like smartphones, PCs, servers, and data storage. The need for technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G networks, and smart cars is also creating the next wave of growth for the industry. Keeping up with this dynamism requires new tools that can design, fabricate, and test chips at ever smaller sizes and more complex architectures, creating a dire need for semiconductor capital manufacturing equipment.

The 14 semiconductor manufacturing stocks we track reported a satisfactory Q4. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 1.6% while next quarter’s revenue guidance was 1.8% below.

Amidst this news, share prices of the companies have had a rough stretch. On average, they are down 10.6% since the latest earnings results.

Entegris (NASDAQ:ENTG)

With fabs representing the company’s largest customer type, Entegris (NASDAQ:ENTG) supplies products that purify, protect, and generally ensure the integrity of raw materials needed for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

Entegris reported revenues of $849.8 million, up 4.6% year on year. This print exceeded analysts’ expectations by 3.3%. Overall, it was a strong quarter for the company with a solid beat of analysts’ EPS estimates and an impressive beat of analysts’ adjusted operating income estimates.

Bertrand Loy, Entegris’ President and Chief Executive Officer, said: “We concluded 2024 with strong performance in the fourth quarter, exceeding our guidance for both sales and non-GAAP EPS. For the year, we continued to outperform the market and demonstrated leverage in our model with EBITDA growth that was twice the rate of our sales growth.”

The stock is down 11.5% since reporting and currently trades at $92.01.

Is now the time to buy Entegris? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free .

Best Q4: Kulicke and Soffa (NASDAQ:KLIC)

Headquartered in Singapore, Kulicke & Soffa (NASDAQ: KLIC) is a provider of production equipment and tools used to assemble semiconductor devices

Kulicke and Soffa reported revenues of $166.1 million, down 3% year on year, outperforming analysts’ expectations by 0.7%. The business had a very strong quarter with a significant improvement in its inventory levels and a solid beat of analysts’ EPS estimates.