Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) reported record second-quarter results after Thursday’s close, beating on revenue and earnings and raising its outlook for both fiscal 2027 and 2028, and the stock still fell hard in extended trading. Revenue grew 37% from a year earlier to a record $2.739 billion, data center revenue climbed 46%, and non-GAAP earnings reached $0.94 a share, a penny above consensus. It is the sort of beat-and-raise that usually sends a chip stock higher.
Marvell had already rebounded about 49% off its late-July low going into the report, which left a record and a narrow beat largely priced in, so investors fixed on timing instead of the headline. The third-quarter guidance and the payoff from a landmark custom-chip deal with Google both point to an acceleration that arrives in the second half of the fiscal year, and a stock that had run this far wanted to see that growth now rather than wait for it.
Marvell rallied toward $253 alongside Nvidia’s beat, then reversed and fell further after its own report. Source: TradingViewWhat Marvell Reported and Why the Stock Fell
Revenue was $2.739 billion, a record, up 37% from a year earlier and 13% from the prior quarter, and about $39 million above the midpoint of Marvell’s own guidance. Data center revenue climbed 46% to $2.171 billion. Non-GAAP earnings were $0.94 a share, GAAP earnings were $0.33, and operating cash flow was $605.5 million. Against consensus pulled today, that is a beat: Zacks had revenue at $2.71 billion and non-GAAP EPS at $0.93, a figure FX Leaders carried too, so Marvell cleared both by a small margin, roughly $30 million on revenue and a penny on earnings.
Marvell has met or narrowly beaten estimates every quarter for two years, so a record and a small beat is exactly what the market priced. The stock had rebounded about 49% off its late-July low into the print, which left little room for an in-line result to impress. It closed down 1.30% at $241.93 on Thursday, then fell more than 7% in after-hours trading, with the overnight indication near $220, a level that resets when regular trading opens.
Marvell has met or beaten its non-GAAP EPS estimate every quarter shown, and this quarter’s $0.94 was another narrow beat. A record that the market already expects does not move a stock that has run 49% off its lows. Source: Marvell earnings releases; estimates via 24/7 Wall St. and consensus · Chart: FinanceFeedsThe gap between $0.33 GAAP and $0.94 non-GAAP is wide, driven by $326 million of stock-based compensation, $215 million of acquired-intangible amortization, and a $52 million swing on marks tied to the March preferred-stock issuance. The $0.94 is an adjusted figure that strips out real, recurring costs, so it is best read as the number analysts estimate against, not clean profit.
Investor Takeaway
The selloff is about expectations, not results. Revenue rose 37% to a record and the beat was real, but at roughly a penny on EPS it could not clear a bar set by a 49% run into the print.
The Guide That Still Wasn’t Enough
Marvell guided third-quarter revenue to $3.150 billion, plus or minus 5%, with non-GAAP EPS of $1.10, and raised its full-year outlook for both fiscal years 2027 and 2028 again. CEO Matt Murphy said AI-related bookings remain exceptionally robust and pointed to “a significant acceleration in our Custom business beginning in the second half of fiscal 2027.” The acceleration investors are paying for is a back-half and next-year story, not this quarter’s, and a stock priced for it wanted proof now, not a promise.
Data Center Versus the Legacy Business
The quarter also sharpened Marvell’s dependence on one engine. Data center reached 79% of revenue, up from 74% a year ago, while the communications and other segments slipped 3% sequentially to $567.8 million. Data center did all the growing.
Data Center climbed to 79% of Marvell’s revenue and drove all of the growth, while the legacy communications business shrank sequentially. That concentration is the engine and the risk. Source: Marvell Q2 FY27 earnings release (SEC 8-K) · Chart: FinanceFeedsThat concentration ties Marvell tightly to AI infrastructure spending, which is the fastest-growing market in semiconductors, but it also means custom silicon and optical interconnect, which carry lower gross margins than the legacy business, now set the trend. Non-GAAP gross margin was 58.9%, down from 59.4% a year earlier, and Marvell guided it lower again, to 57.5% to 58.5%, for the third quarter. Faster growth is arriving at a slightly thinner margin.
The Google Warrant and the Timing Problem
The clearest reason the market fixated on timing is the Google deal, and its structure explains why. As detailed in the Marvell-Google custom-silicon agreement, Marvell issued Google a warrant to buy up to 58.97 million shares at $206.58, worth about $12.2 billion if fully exercised, in exchange for building chips across Google’s TPU ecosystem. But only about 1.36 million of those shares vest on a schedule. The rest unlock in 240 tranches, one for every $500 million of custom-product revenue Google buys, running from this coming quarter through fiscal 2033. Full unlock requires $120 billion of cumulative Marvell sales to Google, since the warrant vests in 240 tranches of $500 million each
That is the mechanism behind “the revenue is real but back-loaded.” The deal ties Google’s ownership directly to how much it spends, which is a powerful long-term alignment, but it front-loads none of the payoff. Morningstar’s William Kerwin framed the win as Google adding a supplier rather than dropping its incumbent, which keeps the story honest: this is expansion, not displacement, and the money arrives over years.
Marvell Against Broadcom, and the Nvidia Read-Through
That incumbent is Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), and the scoreboard still favors it heavily. Broadcom’s most recent quarter carried roughly $10.8 billion of AI revenue against Marvell’s $2.17 billion in data center, and the two together control most of the custom-ASIC market. Marvell is the fast-growing challenger widening its foothold, not the leader, a dynamic the Broadcom bull and bear breakdown lays out. Broadcom fell more than 5% when the Google warrant was first disclosed, so the market did read it as a share shift, just a gradual one.
The backdrop is the same AI-capex cycle that lifted Nvidia on Wednesday. Nvidia’s beat pushed AI-infrastructure names higher and carried Marvell up with it before its own print, which is part of why the bar was so high. For a fuller view of where the stock can go from here, the Marvell bull and bear scenarios frame the range. The next hard catalyst is Marvell’s investor day on October 6, where management will detail the custom-silicon roadmap that this quarter promised but did not yet deliver.
Investor Takeaway
The forward variable is the second-half fiscal 2027 custom acceleration Murphy guided, since that is when the Google revenue begins to convert, and the stock now needs it to arrive on time.
