Audience (the Company) Deserves a Standing Ovation

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The bears thought that the old saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," would apply to Audience (ADNC).

Without Apple (AAPL) as a customer, Audience's financial health would surely suffer, they thought.

But Audience has reported two solid quarters in a row, proving the bears wrong.

Many doubted Audience could produce an encore performance similar of its strong third quarter, when it grew both revenue and earnings per share by more than 50% year over year.

But Audience's fourth quarter report was impressive. Even better, the company issued an outlook that suggests the best is yet to come.

For the period ending in December, the company posted revenue of $38.7 million, up 115% year over year and beating Street estimates for $31.8 million. Audience posted net income of $3.1 million, or 14 cents per share, reversing a year-ago loss of $5.6 million, or $5.56 per share.

Profitability was also impressive as gross margins increased to 54% of revenue from 44.6% a year ago. This is exceptionally noteworthy because in the previous quarter management had expected margins to remain unchanged at best

In terms of outlook for the March quarter, Audience expects revenue of between $43 million and $46 million, ahead of analysts' average estimates of $31.8 million.

After Audience reported its fourth-quarter results, its shares immediately soared 24%. This means that shares have now surged more than 155% since bottoming at $5.51 in October.

Despite this strong performance, shares are still down over 56% from last year's highs of $23. Why? Investors panicked after Audience announced last summer that Apple opted not to use the company's noise suppression technology in the iPhone 5 -- sending the stock plummeting more than 80%.

Now Audience, which has been public for less than a year, seems like a new company. Although many investors jumped into the stock expecting the famed "halo effect" to take over, the management of Audience has proven that there is life outside of Apple, or at least financial health.

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