James Anderson on financial performance
From Coherent | Six Five Media: Beyond the Numbers - Jim Anderson on Coherent’s Next Chapter · · Coherent Corp.
“We really did have a good quarter and this is our fiscal second quarter, this was our December quarter. We grew revenue about 6% sequentially but we grew at 27% on a year-over-year basis. We expanded gross margin on both a sequential and year-over-year basis and EPS grew 40% sequentially and more than tripled on a year-by-year basis.”
On , James Anderson, Chief Executive Officer, President & Employee Director at COHERENT CORP, spoke about financial performance during Coherent | Six Five Media: Beyond the Numbers - Jim Anderson on Coherent’s Next Chapter on Coherent Corp..
About James Anderson
In a February 2025 interview, Coherent CEO Jim Anderson discussed the company's recent financial performance and its role in AI-driven data center growth. He stated that in the company's fiscal second quarter, revenue grew 6% sequentially and 27% year-over-year, with earnings per share increasing 40% sequentially and more than tripling year-over-year. Anderson attributed much of this growth to the data center business, which he said grew 80% year-over-year, driven by demand for optical transceivers that enable networking between computing nodes in AI workloads. He described Coherent's core competence as "harnessing the power of a photon" for three applications: transmitting data, using laser beams to change material properties, and measuring or sensing objects. Anderson also addressed the company's industrial business, which he characterized as a stable market serving semiconductor equipment, OLED screen manufacturing, and medical applications such as microscopes used in Alzheimer's research. He noted that nearly half of Coherent's business is industrial or industrial-related, and that innovations in that area can be applied to data communications, creating a "flywheel effect." Regarding company culture, Anderson said Coherent has a strong culture of innovation at a fundamental physical level, but that the company needs to improve its speed and agility in bringing innovations to market.