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Ambarella

AMBA on Nasdaq. Ambarella sells chips that process video to makers of cameras, cars, and security equipment. Market value $3.0bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to July 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to January 2026.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Technology stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

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Cash yield
past 12 months to July 2026
0.3%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $0.32 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to July 2026
n/a

The filings do not give us enough to work this out.

Return on capital
five annual reports to January 2026
-16.1%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns -16 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 60 of 100. Price score: 1 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$67.94 a share, 41% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $48.30 to $96.69.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
2022202320242025202612 monthsto Jul '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: $10 million in the past 12 months, $58 million in the year to January 2026.

Revenue
$332m$338m$226m$285m$391m
Operating margin
-8.9%-22.0%-68.2%-44.4%-21.1%
Debt to equity
0.000.000.000.000.00
Shares outstanding
0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)3 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)No
  • Debt0.00× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 11.9% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesNo, 14% more shares since 2022

The quarter to July 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $108 million last quarter, up 13% on a year ago.
  • A loss of $7 million, compared with a loss of $20 million a year ago.
  • It loses 15 cents on each $1 of sales, compared with 28 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $10 million, down from $37 million.
  • 3% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • It has $102 million more cash than debt, down from $143 million a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
October 2024$83m
January 2025$84m
April 2025$86m
July 2025$96m
October 2025$108m
January 2026$101m
April 2026$100m
July 2026$108m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
October 2024-$24m
January 2025-$20m
April 2025-$24m
July 2025-$20m
October 2025-$15m
January 2026-$16m
April 2026-$18m
July 2026-$7m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
23 March 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
4 December 2026

Who owns it

4 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 3 last quarter. 341 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

5 investors own more than 5%.

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 7 sold $18m, $8m of it under preset trading plans.

  • PAISLEY CHRISTOPHER B
    Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    25 September 2026
    Shares
    250
    Price
    $70.76
    Value
    $17,690
  • Young John Alexander
    CFO
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    18 September 2026
    Shares
    1,896
    Price
    $67.28
    Value
    $127,563
  • Wang Feng-Ming
    CEO, Director
    Sold
    Date
    17 September 2026
    Shares
    6,086
    Price
    $64.83
    Value
    $394,555
  • Ju Chi-Hong
    Senior VP, Systems & GM
    Sold
    Date
    17 September 2026
    Shares
    2,009
    Price
    $64.83
    Value
    $130,243
  • Lee Chan W
    Chief Operations Officer
    Sold
    Date
    17 September 2026
    Shares
    2,893
    Price
    $64.83
    Value
    $187,553
  • Young John Alexander
    CFO
    Sold
    Date
    17 September 2026
    Shares
    3,126
    Price
    $64.83
    Value
    $202,659
  • Chen Yun-Lung
    VP, Business Dev. & Marketing
    Sold
    Date
    9 July 2026
    Shares
    5,958
    Price
    $78.66
    Value
    $468,656
  • Ju Chi-Hong
    Senior VP, Systems & GM
    Sold
    Date
    1 July 2026
    Shares
    10,000
    Price
    $88.84
    Value
    $888,400
  • Wang Feng-Ming
    CEO, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    1 July 2026
    Shares
    16,250
    Price
    $90.08
    Value
    $1m
  • PAISLEY CHRISTOPHER B
    Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    26 June 2026
    Shares
    250
    Price
    $62.01
    Value
    $15,503

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the serious warning signs we check for were found. 1 thing worth knowing.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 23 Mar 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 4 Sep 2026 and 3 later 8-Ks.

  • One big customer

    Worth knowing

    One customer brings in a big share of sales: 70% last year. Losing that customer would hurt.

    “For the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026, the customer representing 10% or more of revenue was WT, which accounted for approximately 70% of total revenue.”

    From the 10-K filed 23 March 2026, Item 1A. Risk Factors. Read it in the filing

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.