DESWELL INDUSTRIES INC (DSWL) Stock Analysis
DESWELL INDUSTRIES INC
▾ What's in the 36/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read DSWL
We are not publishing an intrinsic value for this one — the section below says exactly why. Everything on this page that comes straight from the filings and the tape is still here; treat the missing valuation as a known gap, not as a verdict on the business.
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1
Reported earnings & margins ↓
What the company actually reported — unaffected by the valuation being held.
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Balance sheet & book value ↓
Assets, liabilities and equity as filed.
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Who's selling & betting against it ↓
Insider and short-interest behaviour needs no valuation model.
The share count we read for DSWL looks wrong — common for multi-class / founder-controlled filers that report shares per share-class. That makes per-share figures (including intrinsic value) misleading, so we suppressed them. The company's total financials below are sound.
What to use instead: Lean on the totals — revenue, net income, cash flow — and the balance sheet. Multi-class share counts are being corrected; once fixed, the per-share valuation returns automatically.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — DSWL's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✓ Positive net incomeNet income $11.1M in FY2025.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $13.5M (was $13.2M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $13.5M vs net income $11.1M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets 9.3% vs 6.9% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $120.2M).
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✓ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 5.45x vs 5.07x a year ago.
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✓ Share count (dilution)Share count held roughly flat (0.0M → 0.0M year-over-year).
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✓ Pricing power (gross margin)Gross margin 20.2% vs 20.0% a year ago.
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✗ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 0.56x vs 0.62x a year ago.Why this matters: Asset turnover measures how much revenue each dollar of assets generates. Rising = more productive use of the asset base.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Deswell Industries due to an extreme valuation output, likely caused by a data or units issue, making the model unreliable. Investors are likely focused on the company's consistent profitability and positive operating cash flow, as well as its share buyback program. The #1 quantifiable risk is the illiquidity discount applied, indicating difficulty in exiting positions.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Any acceleration in revenue growth above 1% annually
- Continued positive operating cash flow generation
- Further share buyback announcements
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Free cash flow rose to $13.2M.
- Net income grew +44% to $11.1M.
- Revenue fell -3% to $67.6M.
Roughly flat: Gross margin held to 20% (+0 pts).
Management & Leadership
Deswell Industries Inc. is led by its CEO, Mr. Wai-Keung (Wilfred) Wong, who has been with the company for a significant period. He also serves as the Chairman of the Board, providing consistent leadership.
What They Make
Deswell Industries manufactures and sells a range of consumer products, including plastic and electronic products, primarily serving original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs).
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing Deswell based on its consistent profitability (net income positive 5/5 years) and positive operating cash flow (positive 4/5 years), suggesting a stable, albeit slow-growing, business. The share buyback program, retiring 4% of shares per year, also contributes to per-share growth, attracting investors focused on capital returns.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself through its positive operating cash flow and is actively returning capital to shareholders by retiring 4% of its shares per year through buybacks.
Free Cash Flow DCF
Standard FCF DCF: positive free cash flow in a sector suited for cash-flow-based valuation.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 1.0% |
| Eps Growth | 507.4% |
| Historical Fcf Growth | 68.8% |
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
| Best Estimate | 3.1% |
| Method | blend(70% revenue_cagr, 30% sector)+buyback(4%) |
| Growth Basis | total |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been roughly flat, growing 1%/yr over the last four years, from $65M to $68M.
Geography & Markets
Deswell Industries operates primarily from its manufacturing facilities in China, serving a global customer base. Exact geographic revenue mix is not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)50.1NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (4 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (4)
- Per-share growth boosted by buybacks: the company is retiring 4% of its shares per year, which adds directly to per-share growth on top of business growth. Final per-share growth used by the model: 7.1%/yr.
- Illiquidity discount 15% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Extreme valuation (P/IV withheld — see the note above); output dominated by data/units issue (often a multi-class share-count mismatch). Suppressed.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From DESWELL INDUSTRIES INC's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 67.6M | 11.1M | $0.70 |
| 2024 | 69.4M | 7.7M | $0.48 |
| 2023 | 77.3M | 2.1M | $0.13 |
| 2022 | 86.0M | 8.2M | $0.51 |
| 2021 | 64.9M | 8.2M | $0.51 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 13.5M | 332,000 | — | 13.2M |
| 2024 | 13.2M | 381,000 | — | 12.8M |
| 2023 | 13.0M | 792,000 | — | 12.2M |
| 2022 | -183,000 | 1.5M | — | -1.7M |
| 2021 | 3.3M | 551,000 | — | 2.7M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 120.2M |
| Total Liabilities | 18.1M |
| Equity | 102.1M |
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