ticker: NOD.OL layer: L3-Fabless verdict: yellow verify_date: 2026-05-28 #

Nordic Semiconductor ASA (NOD.OL) — Graham Screen #

Screened: 2026-05-28
Exchange: Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE)
Currency: Reports in USD; price quoted in NOK
Sector: Semiconductors — Fabless, IoT wireless SoC
FX assumptions: USD/NOK ~10.50, EUR/NOK ~11.60

PRICE SNAPSHOT — ABBREVIATED THRESHOLD CHECK #

Abbreviated threshold: NOT triggered. YTD +48.6% < 80% cutoff. Full screen proceeds.

Context (critical): The bull thesis was NOD did NOT rererate with AI names. This is factually wrong as of May 2026. The stock is at -3.3% from its 52-week high after a +48.6% YTD run and +62% year. The inventory bottom thesis is already largely priced. This does not invalidate the screen but dramatically changes the entry math.

1. PRICE AND VALUATION METRICS #

Analyst consensus (16 analysts): Buy (mean score 2.44). PT mean NOK 191.5, median NOK 185, high NOK 235, low NOK 134. Current price (NOK 204) is 6.5% ABOVE the mean PT and 10.3% above median — the stock has already outrun consensus targets.

2. COMPANY PROFILE #

Nordic Semiconductor is Norway's leading fabless semiconductor company and the global #1 in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) SoC market share. Founded 1983, headquartered Trondheim. 1,433 employees.

Product lines:

• Short-range (92% of Q1 2026 revenue): BLE SoCs — nRF52 (mature), nRF53 (current gen), nRF54 (new gen ramping). 32% share of BLE SIG certifications vs <10% for nearest competitor.
• Long-range (6%): Cellular IoT (NB-IoT/LTE-M) — nRF91 Series, newly announced nRF92 (LTE-M + satellite NTN + edge AI, GA early 2027), nRF93 Cat-1 bis (GA mid-2026).
• Other (2%): PMIC, Wi-Fi, ASICs, development tools.
• Software/Cloud: Memfault (acquired 2025, device lifecycle management), nRF Cloud services.

Use cases: Apple AirTag, PC accessories, gaming peripherals, wearables, industrial automation, healthcare, smart home. Consumer is 60% of revenue, Industrial & Healthcare 38%.

3. REVENUE AND INCOME — 5-YEAR TREND #

Cycle narrative: 2022 was the peak of the IoT/BLE chip supercycle (AirTag launch, post-COVID consumer electronics surge). 2023-2024 was a severe inventory correction — the deepest the company has experienced — with revenue falling 34% from peak and a net loss in 2024. 2025 marked the recovery inflection: revenue +31% YoY, gross margin recovery to ~52%. Q1 2026 shows acceleration (+24% YoY, +14% QoQ).

Revenue acceleration quarterly: | Quarter | Revenue | QoQ | YoY | Gross Margin | |---------|---------|-----|-----|-------------| | Q4 2024 | $150M | — | — | 49.1% | | Q1 2025 | $155M | +3.4% | — | 49.5% | | Q2 2025 | $164M | +5.8% | — | 50.7% | | Q4 2025 | $170M | — | — | 54.9% | | Q1 2026 | $192M | +13.5% | +24.1% | 52.1% | | Q2 2026E | $210M (mid) | +9.4%E | — | >50% |

The +13.5% QoQ in Q1 is 3-4x normal seasonal growth, reflecting demand well above trend.

4. FREE CASH FLOW AND SBC (shr-001) #

SBC assessment (shr-001): SBC is 28% of FCF in 2025 — material, not trivial, but not crisis-level. SBC as % of revenue is only 2.5%, much lower than US tech peers (often 10-20%). At $17M annual SBC on a $668M revenue base, dilution is modest. SBC-adjusted FCF 2025 is $42.6M vs reported $59.2M — a ~28% haircut but does not change the qualitative picture significantly.

Q1 2026 FCF weakness: OCF was only $0.9M in Q1 (vs $35M Q1 2025) due to intentional inventory build (+$29M QoQ, supporting higher revenue ramps). This is working capital timing, not structural deterioration — confirmed by management commentary.

SBC-adjusted P/FCF (2025): Mkt cap $3.83B / $42.6M SBC-adj FCF = 89.9x. Extremely expensive on current FCF. At normalized 25% EBITDA margins on $770M revenue run-rate, FCF would be ~$100-120M — that's a more reasonable 32-38x.

5. DIVIDEND #

None. No dividend paid since 2011 (ex-div date 2011-06-17 is historical artifact). Payout ratio 0%. This is structural — Nordic has been a growth-reinvestment business throughout its recent history. F4 is a permanent FAIL for this company profile.

6. BALANCE SHEET #

Balance sheet verdict: Pristine. Net cash positive. No solvency risk whatsoever. Current ratio 3.6x is excellent. The D/E ratio reported by yfinance (24.5%) is misleading — that's debt/equity at 24%, not 24.5x. Actual financial leverage is very low. This is the core of the bull thesis — Nordic can survive another down cycle without dilutive equity raises.

Inventory: Up $29M QoQ in Q1 2026 to $183.7M. Management confirmed this is intentional buildup to support revenue ramps (nRF54 new product, Q2 guidance step-up). Not a demand concern.

7. EARNINGS QUALITY — LAST 2 QUARTERS #

Q4 2025 (reported Feb 5, 2026):

• Revenue $169.5M vs $167M est — in line
• Gross margin 54.9% (reported, includes $5M cellular write-down reversal — adjusted ~52%)
• EBITDA margin 8.9% vs 6.4% est — beat
• EBIT margin 9.4% vs -0.5% est — massive beat
• Q1 2026 guidance midpoint $185M vs $164M consensus — +13% beat on guidance
• EPS surprise: Q4 actual +132% vs est (-0.20 actual vs consensus)

Q1 2026 (reported April 27, 2026):

• Revenue $192.4M (+24% YoY, +13.5% QoQ) — above $175-195M own guidance
• Gross margin 52.1% — confirmed above 50% floor
• Adjusted EBITDA $23.9M (+62% YoY), margin 12.4%
• Net profit $10.6M vs $1.1M Q1 2025 — +825%
• EPS $0.054 USD vs $0.006 Q1 2025 — +800%
• EPS surprise vs consensus: actual NOK 0.494 vs NOK 0.252 est — +96% beat
• Q2 2026 guidance: $200-220M (midpoint $210M) — represents +9% sequential growth, well above seasonal norms
• Gross margin Q2: confirmed above 50%

Pattern: Two consecutive very strong beats after four quarters of recovery. Management credibility has been rebuilt. The Q2 guidance at $200-220M is confident — they would not give this range without strong order visibility.

Book-to-bill: Not explicitly disclosed by Nordic, but inferred as above 1.0 given the strong sequential guidance (+9% QoQ into Q2) and inventory buildup. The Q1 report says growth reflects "both large, key customers and the broad market" and order patterns are broad-based. No book-to-bill ratio disclosed in the report (Nordic does not publish this metric explicitly).

nRF54 ramp: nRF54 represented ~15% of new BLE certifications in Q4 2025, up from <10% in Q3. Management says nRF54 is "beginning to generate meaningful revenue" and expects it to be a "key long-term growth driver." This is the product cycle tailwind — nRF54 is Nordic's next-generation platform replacing the dominant nRF52 family. The transition creates a multi-year revenue growth engine if design-in activity converts to production.

8. INSIDER AND INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP #

Insiders (~15% of shares):

• CEO Vegard Wollan (in post since Jan 2024): BOUGHT ~80K shares in November 2024 at NOK 104, investing ~NOK 8.3M. This was a significant open-market purchase (+160% of prior holding). Strong positive signal per shr-002.
• Board Chair Dieter May: BOUGHT 1,500 shares at NOK 193.30 in May 2026. Small but directionally positive — recent, at current levels.
• CEO also received May 2026 RSU/performance share grants (7,506 RSUs + 11,258 performance shares) — these are compensation, not open-market buys.
• No systematic selling pattern identified.

Institutional (65% of shares): 129 institutional holders. yfinance data shows stale US-focused holdings. Norwegian institutional holders (Norges Bank, DNB, Storebrand) likely significant — not fully available.

Assessment: Insider signal is positive but not dramatic. CEO open-market buy at NOK 104 (November 2024) with stock now at 204 — that was a great call. Chair buy at NOK 193 is more recent and at current prices, positive. No sign of systematic insider selling.

9. ANALYST PICTURE #

Current price is 6.5% above mean PT and 10% above median. This is unusual — it means the stock has already outrun what analysts thought was fair value at the time of their last updates. Jefferies, which was the most bearish at NOK 101 (Sell), upgraded to Hold at NOK 141 — but the stock ran past that too.

Analyst revenue forecasts (2026): Post-Q1, Jefferies raised 2026 revenue growth estimate to 18%. Consensus appears to be converging toward 15-20% growth for FY2026, implying full-year 2026 revenue of approximately $770-800M. This is consistent with Q1 actual + Q2 guide ($192M + $210M = $402M H1, implying ~$360-400M H2 at flat/modest growth).

10. CYCLE POSITION AND RISK FACTORS #

Bear case concerns:

1. Price has already rerated. Stock +62% in 12 months, -3.3% from 52w high. The inventory bottom thesis was correct — but the market priced it months ago. Entry now is into the second half of the recovery, not the inflection point.
2. Tariff/geopolitical exposure. Nordic chips go into consumer electronics assembled in China (Apple AirTag, PC accessories, gaming). US-China trade tensions and potential tariff escalation on electronics are an unquantified headwind. Apple is the largest known customer (exact % undisclosed). Q1 report mentions "geopolitical risks and trade tensions" in risk factors.
3. Customer concentration. Apple/AirTag historically significant. Nordic does not disclose specific customer revenue percentages but calls out "large, key customers" alongside broad market. Concentration risk is real.
4. nRF54 execution risk. nRF54 is only ~15% of certifications — it needs to ramp to 40-50%+ to be "meaningful" in revenue terms. The transition from nRF52 (mature, potentially dinging) to nRF54 (new gen, higher ASP) needs to work. Any delay or yield issue is a negative catalyst.
5. Profitability is still nascent. Net income $16M on $668M revenue (2.4% net margin). EBITDA margin 10% vs 25% LT target. The path from 10% to 25% EBITDA margin is the entire bull thesis — if opex continues growing faster than revenue (opex +27% YoY in Q1 2026 vs revenue +24%), leverage does not materialize.
6. Q1 FCF was -$12M. Working capital build. Acceptable as inventory-timing but FCF is not yet sustainable positive on a quarterly basis.

Bull case:

1. Pristine balance sheet — net cash $143M, RCF $200M undrawn. Can self-fund through any down cycle.
2. nRF52 product still dominant (85% of certifications), nRF54 adds new ASP tailwind.
3. Long-range cellular IoT (nRF91/92/93) is an entirely new addressable market — 6% of revenue today but growing 66% YoY.
4. Cloud/software (Memfault) adds recurring revenue, improving gross margin mix.
5. CEO open-market buy at NOK 104 in November 2024 — he called the cycle correctly.
6. 32% BLE certification market share, 3x nearest competitor — near-monopoly in a growing market.

GRAHAM 7-FILTER SCREEN #

Graham score: 2/7. F1 and F2 pass. F3-F7 all fail.

Filter notes:

• F3: One clear loss year (2024, -$38.5M) disrupts what would otherwise be a borderline pass. Prior to 2024, the company had been consistently profitable since at least 2019.
• F4: Permanent structural fail for a growth semiconductor company. Not indicative of poor financial health.
• F5: EPS was ~NOK 3.54 at 2022 peak, now NOK 1.17 — still 67% below peak, despite recovery. Trailing 10yr data unavailable but the 2022→2025 trajectory fails the filter.
• F6/F7: These fail hard and are the most important. At 174x trailing P/E and 6.4x P/B, this is a growth multiple, not a value multiple. The forward P/E of 44.4x is high even for quality growth semis.

Growth Stock Addendum (shr-004): Graham's growth addendum applies since the stock fails defensive filters. The relevant test is: does implied growth at current P/E match what is achievable?

GRAHAM INTRINSIC VALUE TABLE (shr-003, shr-012) #

EPS: Trailing NOK 1.17 (TTM) | Forward NOK 4.59 (consensus) | Current price NOK 204

Graham implied growth rate (shr-003):

• Trailing P/E 174.4x → implied required growth: 82.9%/yr (patently impossible for a $4B company)
• Forward P/E 44.4x → implied required growth: 18.0%/yr (matching company LT target of >20%)

Key insight (shr-003): The trailing vs forward implied growth gap is enormous — 83% trailing vs 18% forward. This tells you: the market is pricing a massive profitability inflection from the current trough EPS (NOK 1.17) to normalized EPS (NOK 4.59 consensus). The stock is NOT cheap even on forward earnings; it is pricing 18%/yr growth exactly at the company's own LT target with zero margin of safety.

SBC adjustment (shr-001):

• Forward EPS NOK 4.59 → SBC-adj forward EPS NOK 3.55 (deducting ~NOK 1.04/share annual SBC)
• SBC-adj Forward P/E: 57.5x — meaningfully more expensive
• SBC-adj forward P/E at the target growth rate of 18% produces IV of NOK 172 (g=20%) → current price already ~19% above SBC-adjusted fair value at achievable growth

VALUATION FRAMEWORK: EV/EBITDA PATH #

This is more appropriate than Graham IV for a cyclical semi:

At current EV of ~$3.69B, achieving the company's own long-term targets (20% growth, 25% EBITDA margin) and exiting at 20x EV/EBITDA in 4 years yields a 17% IRR. That is attractive for a quality semiconductor company. But it requires PERFECT execution of an ambitious multi-year plan from a company currently at 10% EBITDA margin. At a 15x exit multiple (reasonable if growth decelerates), IRR is only 9% — unacceptable for the volatility and execution risk.

shr-020 RED FLAG CHECK (same-day diligence, 2026-05-28) #

Red flags active: 3 AMBER (price, analyst, macro) + 1 RED (valuation). No fundamental RED flags on balance sheet, earnings quality, or insider direction.

VERDICT: YELLOW #

Nordic Semiconductor is a high-quality company with a dominant market position, pristine balance sheet, improving earnings trajectory, and a legitimate long-cycle growth opportunity in BLE/IoT/cellular. The fundamental thesis has been vindicated — the inventory bottom was real, nRF54 is ramping, and the recovery is broadening.

The problem is price. The stock has already captured the inflection story:

• +62% in 12 months, -3.3% from 52w high — the easy money is made
• Price is 6.5% above analyst consensus mean target
• Forward P/E 44.4x (SBC-adj 57.5x) prices in the company hitting its own ambitious targets with no margin of safety
• Graham IV requires 20%+ sustained growth on forward EPS to justify current price — that's exactly what the company is targeting, leaving no error budget
• Trailing P/E 174x and P/B 6.4x are screens-off-the-chart levels for a Graham defensive investor

This is not a Graham value screen. It is a high-quality growth story at a growth premium that has re-rated. The correct framing is not "margin of safety" but "does the growth rate justify the multiple?" — and the answer is "yes if they execute, no if they miss."

Trigger for reclassification to GREEN:

• Pullback to NOK 130-145 (forward P/E ~28-32x, below analyst median PT): creates a genuine entry with some margin of safety
• Equivalent to ~$23-25M EUR entry position at NOK/EUR 11.6: ~EUR 2,000-2,200 for ~15-17 shares

Kill conditions (if entered on pullback):

• nRF54 ramp fails (certifications decline from 15% back below 10%)
• Gross margin breaks below 48% for two consecutive quarters (indicates pricing pressure/share loss)
• Net cash turns negative (would require large acquisition or sustained losses)
• Revenue growth deceleration below 10% without macro explanation
• Apple announces AirTag product line discontinuation or supplier change

Watchlist price: NOK 145 (approximately 30% pullback from current; forward P/E ~31.5x; would create ~10% gap below analyst median PT; consistent with tariff-driven correction scenario).

VERDICT LINE: YELLOW — High-quality fabless IoT leader at a stretched valuation; stock has rerated hard (+62% LTM) and now trades above analyst consensus targets. Not a Graham value screen. Set watchlist at NOK 145 for a meaningful pullback entry. Do not chase at NOK 204.