SIVERS SEMICONDUCTORS - FX TRANSLATION BRIDGE

Aug 01, 2026

∙ Paid

SEQH CAPITAL RESEARCH - TEAR SHEET
SIVERS SEMICONDUCTORS - FX TRANSLATION BRIDGE: WHY THE SEK HEADLINE CAN MISLEAD

WHAT THIS REPORT ARGUES

This note is a research-only comparability analysis, not a rating or price-target piece, and its purpose is to show that Sivers’ recent SEK-reported revenue trend materially overstates underlying deterioration because of currency translation.
SEQH’s core point is that investors looking only at headline Swedish-krona growth may be reading a mixed signal, where business performance and FX movement are bundled together and made to look like one operating number.

Core thesis

Sivers reported Q1 2026 revenue of SEK 61.9 million, down 21.1 percent year over year, but management separately said the constant-currency decline was only about 11 percent.
SEQH uses that one disclosed anchor point to build an independent FX-neutralization model and then reconstruct the prior four quarters on the same basis.
The conclusion is that Sivers’ recent deceleration was real, but the shape and severity of the slowdown look meaningfully different once FX is stripped out.

SEQH calibrates an FX-sensitivity coefficient of 0.894 using the Q1 2026 gap between reported and constant-currency growth and applies it to a simple equal-weight USD/SEK and GBP/SEK basket.
Under that model, underlying growth actually appears to have peaked in Q2 2025, not Q1 2025, which means the headline series makes the business look like it rolled over earlier than it likely did.
The reconstructed implied constant-currency growth series runs at about 37.8 percent in Q1 2025, 44.6 percent in Q2 2025, 29.8 percent in Q3 2025, 15.2 percent in Q4 2025, and minus 11.0 percent in Q1 2026.

In absolute terms, SEQH estimates that if Q1 2026 had translated at the prior year’s average FX rates, Sivers would have reported about SEK 69.9 million of revenue instead of SEK 61.9 million, an SEK 8.0 million gap attributable to translation rather than operations.
Across the four quarters from Q2 2025 through Q1 2026, the model implies total FX drag of about SEK 22.5 million, equal to roughly 7.8 percent of trailing four-quarter revenue.
The quarter-by-quarter drag becomes progressively larger as the krona strengthens, moving from about SEK -3.2 million in Q2 2025 to SEK -8.0 million in Q1 2026.

The report argues that Sivers is especially easy to misread because it reports in Swedish kronor, while peers like Coherent, Lumentum, and Applied Optoelectronics report in U.S. dollars.
That means a period of SEK strength can mechanically make Sivers’ headline growth look worse than a dollar-reporting peer’s growth, even if the underlying commercial environment is closer than the raw numbers imply.
SEQH’s cleanest example is Coherent in Q1 2026: the headline growth gap versus Sivers is about 41.7 percentage points, but falls to roughly 31.5 points once Sivers is restated on an implied constant-currency basis.

SEQH is explicit that this does not eliminate the performance gap versus peers, especially against stronger AI-optics names like Lumentum and AAOI.
The report also stresses that the model has important limitations: it is calibrated from one disclosed quarter, uses a fixed 50/50 USD and GBP basket, and cannot rely on company-disclosed currency or segment revenue splits because those are not published.
So the analysis should be read as a useful correction to the headline, not as a definitive restatement of company economics.

The main takeaway is that recent SEK-denominated softness at Sivers was partly operational and partly translational, and those two effects should not be conflated when comparing the company to itself or to its photonics peers.
In practical terms, the note gives investors a more defensible way to discuss whether Sivers’ slowdown is being overstated by reporting currency rather than by business fundamentals alone.
The simplest framing is that FX did not fix the quarter, but it did distort the quarter.

FULL 20-PAGE REPORT WITH MODELS ATTACHED BELOW: