SWKS, Skyworks Solutions, Inc.
Our competitors include Analog Devices, Broadcom, Cirrus Logic, Murata Manufacturing, NXP Semiconductors, Qorvo, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments.
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- An asset-light business, earning high margins on intellectual property and people rather than physical plant.
- What moves the needle
- Engagement and pricing power, not factories. What decides it: whether the gross margin holds as the business scales, how much of the profit is paid out to employees as stock, and whether revenue keeps compounding.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has run high across the record (median 23%, above 15% in 7 of 9 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 27% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. High, durable returns can mark a moat, but whether this one is real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.
Every line here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →23% of revenue comes from outside the United States.
- United States77%$3.2B
- Taiwan6%$259M
- China6%$254M
- South Korea5%$190M
- EMEA5%$186M
- Asia, Other1%$41M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record, 2017–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMApr 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $3.7B | $3.9B | $3.4B | $3.4B | $5.1B | $5.5B | $4.8B | $4.2B | $4.1B | $4.0B |
| Gross marginGross mgn | 50% | 50% | 47% | 48% | 49% | 47% | 44% | 41% | 41% | 41% |
| Operating marginOp. mgn | 34.3% | 34.1% | 28.2% | 26.6% | 31.6% | 27.8% | 23.6% | 15.3% | 12.2% | 9.1% |
| Net incomeNet inc. | $1.0B | $918M | $854M | $815M | $1.5B | $1.3B | $983M | $596M | $477M | $361M |
| EPS (diluted)EPS | $5.41 | $5.01 | $4.89 | $4.80 | $8.97 | $7.81 | $6.13 | $3.69 | $3.08 | $2.40 |
| Owner earningsOwner earn. | $1.2B | $838M | $969M | $815M | $1.1B | $935M | $1.6B | $1.7B | $1.1B | $704M |
| Owner earnings marginOE mgn | 31.6% | 21.7% | 28.7% | 24.3% | 22.2% | 17.0% | 34.5% | 39.9% | 27.1% | 17.4% |
| ROICROIC | 41% | 27% | 26% | 23% | 23% | 19% | 15% | 10% | 8% | 6% |
| Cash & investmentsCash+inv | $1.6B | $1.1B | $1.1B | $980M | $1.0B | $587M | $739M | $1.6B | $1.4B | $1.4B |
| Net debt / (cash)Net debt | ($1.6B) | ($1.1B) | ($1.1B) | ($980M) | $1.2B | $1.6B | $554M | ($580M) | ($393M) | ($440M) |
| Book value / shareBVPS | $21.78 | $22.36 | $23.62 | $24.51 | $31.72 | $33.49 | $37.95 | $39.24 | $37.12 | $38.31 |
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? 18.5×ComfortableOperating income $500M ÷ interest expense $27M
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
- ConservativeTotal debt $996M ÷ operating income $500M
Years of operating profit it would take to repay all debt. A first read, not a credit rating: it's gross debt (not netted against cash) over EBIT (not EBITDA), and a cyclical year distorts it.
- Debt, net of cash +$378MNet cashCash $1.2B + ST investments $213M − debt $996M
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $378M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. It also holds $14M in longer-dated marketable securities; counting those, it sits at net cash of $393M. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters; the gross ratio above ignores the cash already set against it. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- SolidNOPAT $453M ÷ invested capital $5.6B (debt + equity − cash)
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; below ~8% the company may destroy value as it grows. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Cash machineOwner Earnings $1.1B = operating cash $1.3B − capex $195M
What an owner could take out without starving the business. That's 27% of revenue. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $232M of SBC) leaves $873M. Honest caveat: capex here blends maintenance and growth, so steady-state Owner Earnings may run higher (see capex vs. depreciation).
- Cash-backedCash from ops $1.3B ÷ net income $477M
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Returns most of itDividends + buybacks $1.3B ÷ Owner Earnings $1.1B
Of $1.1B Owner Earnings, $1.3B (114%) went back to shareholders, $433M dividends, $830M buybacks. Net of $232M stock comp, the real buyback was about $598M. Returning most of it signals a mature cash machine; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
- Investing or harvesting? —Not enough data
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Durability & moat, 2017–2025
A moat is a high return that doesn’t fade, reinvested at high returns. Here is what the record says, judgments, not another chart of the numbers.
- Profitable years 9 of 9
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 4 of 6 yrs
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin 34% (FY2017) → 12% (FY2025)
Margins slipped over the record, competition or costs are biting in.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
- Owner earnings growth +4%/yr
Free cash to owners grew about 4% a year over the record.
- Worst year 2025 · 12.2% op. margin
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
- Share count −2.3%/yr
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
- Dividend record rising
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
How the cash was used, 2017–2025
Over the record, the business generated $13.5B of operating cash, and how management split it is, as Buffett insists, the job that matters most. Here it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$3.2B · 24%
- Dividends$3.0B · 22%
- Buybacks$4.7B · 35%
- Retained (debt / cash)$2.6B · 19%
It reinvested $3.2B (24%) back into the business and returned $7.7B (57%) to owners, $3.0B in dividends, $4.7B in buybacks.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to employees; net of that, the real return to owners is lower (see Management & pay). And the mix alone doesn't grade management, what matters is the return earned on the dollars reinvested (see incremental ROIC in the durability report).
Management & pay
read the proxy →Two questions Buffett actually asks about pay: is stock compensation, a real expense, whatever the income statement pretends, quietly large, and is the top wildly out of line with the floor. He's no populist about it; he just wants pay that's rational and earned, and comp committees that aren't lapdogs.
- CEO pay ratio748:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio isn't proof of anything, some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill, but a runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job or just keeping the chair company.
- Stock-based compensation$232M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 6% of revenue, equal to 46% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. And note the trap, the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Graham’s defensive-investor test
5 of 6 metGraham gave the defensive investor seven numerical criteria in The Intelligent Investor. Here they are, run mechanically on the filings, his framework, not our verdict. Meeting them is a floor of safety, not a reason to buy; missing one is no veto, since many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity tests by design. The worth is in seeing exactly where a company stands against the canon, every number sourced.
- Adequate size PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $4.1B
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 2.33×
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Conservative debt PassDebt ≤ working capital · $996M vs $1.8B WC
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
- Earnings stability PassA profit every year (9-yr record) · no losses
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record PassUninterrupted dividends · paid every year (9)
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Earnings growth MissEarnings +33% over the record · −26%
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Earnings are $3.08/share and book value $37.12/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Graham would be the first to say a checklist is a starting point, not an answer. These are his defensive, bargain-hunter's tests, the cigar-butt lens. Buffett and Munger grew past it, paying fair prices for wonderful businesses; that lens lives in the moat and owner-earnings work above, and both still matter. Clearing Graham’s tests earns a closer look; failing them earns harder questions, not a dismissal.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFA price is the one input we don't pull, you bring it. Type today's close (read it off any broker or quote site) and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, set beside what Skyworks Solutions, Inc. has actually delivered. Nothing is stored; the number stays in your browser.
Enter a price above to run it.
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go, a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. Read it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a ceiling on good sense.
The discount rate is your interest rate, what a dollar years from now is worth today, anchored to the long-term Treasury yield (~4–5% today, plus whatever premium you want for risk). Drag it toward the risk-free rate and watch how much growth the price suddenly “needs”: interest rates are gravity on valuations.
Owner earnings $704M on 151M diluted shares; net cash $440M. This is a lens, not a price target, it says what you'd have to believe, not what the company is worth, and it runs on one year of (noisy) owner earnings at assumptions you can see and change.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Customer concentrationRisk Factors
Who the revenue leans on. When one buyer is a large slice of sales, that buyer holds the pricing power, and its troubles become the company's.
“As of October 3, 2025, three customers represented 82 % of our aggregate gross accounts receivable.”
From the recordRevenue exposed (TTM)$4.0B - Pricing power & competitionRisk Factors
Whether the company sets its price or takes it. Durable pricing power is the surest mark of a moat; price competition is the surest mark there isn't one.
“The wireless communications semiconductor industry, in general, and the other analog and mixed-signal markets in which we compete are very competitive, which may cause pricing pressures, decreased gross margins, and rapid loss of market share.”
From the recordOperating margin9.1% now (TTM), off a 34.3% peak (FY2017) - Supplier & input dependenceBusiness
A choke point upstream. A sole or limited supplier can dictate terms, and a single shortage can stop the line.
“It is our intent not to depend on a sole source of supply unless market or other conditions dictate otherwise.”
From the recordGross-margin cushion (TTM)41% - Concentrated dependenceRisk Factors
What the whole business leans on, a product, a platform, a partner. Concentration cuts both ways, and the filing is where management has to admit it.
“Our success depends, in large part, on the continued contributions of our senior management team, none of whom is bound by a written employment contract to remain with us for a specified period.”
From the recordOwner-earnings margin at stake (TTM)17% - Debt terms & refinancingRisk Factors
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“The agreements that govern the Notes and the Revolving Credit Facility contain various affirmative and negative covenants that, subject to certain significant exceptions, restrict our ability to, among other things, have liens on our property, change the nature of our business, and/or merge or conso…”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)+$378M net cash · interest covered 18.5× - Litigation & contingenciesRisk Factors
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“Following the aforementioned putative class action lawsuit, in April 2025, the Company and certain of its directors and officers were named in two derivative action lawsuits filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Cyclicality & demandRisk Factors
How the business behaves when the economy turns. A cyclical earns its keep across the whole cycle, not at the peak.
“Risks Associated with Our Industry The semiconductor industry is highly cyclical and subject to significant downturns.”
From the recordWorst year on record12.2% operating margin (FY2025)
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “The increase in income tax expense in fiscal 2025, as compared to fiscal 2024, was primarily due to higher foreign taxes including the tax impact of remeasuring existing net deferred tax liabilities in Singapore and a lower Foreign-Derived Intangible Income ("FDII") benefit, partially offset by a de…”
- “Alternatively, under certain specified circumstances, including termination following an injunction arising in connection with certain antitrust or foreign investment laws, or failure to receive certain required regulatory approvals of specified governmental authorities, we will be required to pay Q…”
- “Restructuring, impairment, and other charges in fiscal 2024 was primarily due to the abandonment or delay of previously capitalized in-process research and development ("IPR&D") projects of $147.9 million and employee severance costs.”
- “The decrease in net revenue in fiscal 2025, as compared to fiscal 2024, was driven primarily by a decrease in market share at a significant customer, partially offset by an increase in demand for our mobile and Wi-Fi products.”
- “Completion of the proposed Mergers is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of closing conditions contained in the Merger Agreement, including certain regulatory approvals which may not be received, may take longer than expected or the receipt of which may impose conditions that are not presently an…”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Semiconductors
The same industry, side by side on owner economics, compare, don't rank by a single number.● marks best in the group.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TXNTexas Instruments Incorporated | $17.7B | 57% | 34.1% | 19% | 15% |
| NXPINXP Semiconductors N.v. | $12.3B | 55% | 24.8% | 13% | 20% |
| ADIAnalog Devices Inc | $11.0B | 61% | 26.6% | 6% | 39% |
| MRVLMarvell Technology, Inc | $8.2B | 51% | 16.1% | 7% | 17% |
| ONON Semiconductor Corporation | $6.0B | 33% | 1.4% | 1% | 24% |
| MCHPMicrochip Technology Incorporated | $4.7B | 58% | 10.4% | 4% | 18% |
| SWKSSkyworks Solutions, Inc. | $4.1B | 41% | 12.2% | 8% | 27% |
| MPWRMonolithic Power Systems Inc | $2.8B | 55% | 26.1% | 24% | 24% |