One-glance verdict
Within fair range
$2.89 our estimate vs market $2.85
Wall Street consensus: $5.50 (90.3% higher than our fair-value estimate)
1% below our estimate
Fundamentals snapshot
Data I/O Corporation
DAIO · NCM · Technology · Electronic Components
Current price
$2.85
52-week range
$2.16 - $4.49
Market cap
$29.63M
Balance sheet
Healthy
-39.35x Concerning
Net cash $2.88M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
1 Reward
2 Risks
1 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 5/10 years.
- Risk Return on equity was -61.2% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from -3.1% to -14.1% over 3 years.
What this company does
Data I/O Corporation
Data I/O Corporation builds the specialized machines that load the initial software and security features onto the computer chips used in cars, medical devices, and consumer electronics. The company makes its money selling these programming systems and services to manufacturers around the world. This means its success is closely tied to the global demand for new technology, making it a key part of the electronics supply chain (the entire process of making and selling a product, from raw materials to the final customer).
How the company got here
Founded in 1969 and incorporated in 1972, Data I/O started by creating equipment that allowed engineers to load data onto computer chips. Over the decades, it has evolved, staying at the forefront of technology for programming all kinds of electronic memory devices. Today, it's a leading global provider of these specialized systems, especially for the automotive industry, serving 8 of the top 9 automotive electronics suppliers worldwide. The company is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, and has been publicly traded on the NASDAQ since 1972.
What it actually does
Think of almost any electronic product with a computer chip inside—a car, a medical device, or a smart home gadget. Data I/O makes the machines and software that load the essential data and instructions onto those chips before they are installed in the final product. This process, called programming, is a critical step in manufacturing electronics. Data I/O also provides systems that add security features to these chips, protecting them from hacking and ensuring the manufacturer's intellectual property (the unique software that makes the product work) is safe.
Programming Platforms
This is the core of Data I/O's business and represents the physical machines that perform the chip programming. These systems range from smaller desktop units for engineers developing new products to large, fully automated machines for high-volume factory production. The company makes money by selling these systems to electronics manufacturers. This segment's sales can be cyclical (sales that rise and fall with the overall economy), as companies tend to buy expensive equipment when they are expanding production.
Adapters and Software
To use the programming machines, customers need special adapters that physically connect the specific type of chip to the programmer. Since there are thousands of different chip designs, Data I/O sells a wide variety of these adapters. This part of the business provides a more stable, recurring revenue (income that is predictable and likely to continue in the future) because customers need to buy new adapters for new products or to replace worn-out ones. The company also sells specialized software that manages the programming process, adds security, and connects their machines to the factory's overall manufacturing system.
Services
This segment includes maintenance contracts for their programming systems and other support services. As the company's machines are complex and critical for their customers' manufacturing lines, reliable service is essential. Data I/O is increasingly focused on growing this area, including a new offering called Programming-as-a-Service (PaaS), where they manage the programming process on-site for the customer. This shifts the customer's cost from a large upfront equipment purchase to a more predictable operating expense.
What management is betting on now
Data I/O's strategy is to become less reliant on one-time sales of big machines and to build more predictable, recurring revenue streams from adapters, software, and services. A key part of this is the push into Programming-as-a-Service (PaaS) and expanding into new markets like Edge AI (artificial intelligence processed on the device itself rather than in the cloud). The company is also pursuing growth through strategic acquisitions, with a recent letter of intent to acquire a company that would nearly double its revenue and expand its service offerings.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Loading price history…
Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q3
$724.00K
FY2024 Q4
$-1.74M
FY2025 Q1
$53.00K
FY2025 Q2
$-633.00K
FY2025 Q3
$-348.00K
FY2025 Q4
$-1.86M
FY2026 Q1
$-2.23M
FY2026 Q2
$-3.16M
Revenue
$5.15M
Net income
$-1.63M
Diluted EPS
-0.17
Operating cash flow
$-2.94M
Free cash flow
$-3.16M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$3.25M
Net income
$-3.17M
Diluted EPS
-0.34
Operating cash flow
$-2.23M
Free cash flow
$-2.23M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$3.98M
Net income
$-2.75M
Diluted EPS
-0.29
Operating cash flow
$-1.65M
Free cash flow
$-1.86M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.39M
Net income
$-1.36M
Diluted EPS
-0.15
Operating cash flow
$-343.00K
Free cash flow
$-348.00K
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.95M
Net income
$-742.00K
Diluted EPS
-0.08
Operating cash flow
$-342.00K
Free cash flow
$-633.00K
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.18M
Net income
$-382.00K
Diluted EPS
-0.04
Operating cash flow
$109.00K
Free cash flow
$53.00K
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.18M
Net income
$-1.18M
Diluted EPS
-0.13
Operating cash flow
$-1.55M
Free cash flow
$-1.74M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.42M
Net income
$-307.00K
Diluted EPS
-0.03
Operating cash flow
$839.00K
Free cash flow
$724.00K
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $2.89 vs current price $2.85
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $5.50 (90.3% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $2.89 a share — about 1.4% away from today's price of $2.85, so the stock currently looks fairly priced.
Is it drowning in debt?
Healthy
Net cash $2.9M - more cash than debt. Interest coverage -39.4x.
Net debt
$-2.88M
Interest coverage
-39.35x
Data I/O Corporation is healthier than 0 of 1 peers on balance-sheet leverage.
Healthy
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
DAIO
BASELINE
Data I/O Corporation
Total debt $7.96M Interest coverage -39.35x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
What you should know
The case for and against DAIO
1 Reward
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Free cash flow was positive in 5/10 years.
Risks
-
Return on equity was -61.2% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
-
Operating margin compressed from -3.1% to -14.1% over 3 years.
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
—
Forward P/E
19.00x
P/B
2.50x
P/S
1.67x
EV/EBITDA
-3.67x
PEG ratio
—
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
50.6%
Operating margin
-14.1%
Net margin
-50.1%
ROE
-61.2%
ROA
-19.9%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.67x
Current ratio
1.93x
Quick ratio
1.32x
Total debt
$7.96M
Total cash
$10.84M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$17.77M
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-4.5%
EPS TTM
-0.95
EPS 5Y CAGR
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Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$-7.16M
Free CF TTM
$-2.79M
FCF margin
-15.7%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
1989-03-09