ON Semiconductor (NASDAQ: ON) Stock Outlook for December 2025: AI Power, $6 Billion Buyback and SiC Mega-Fab Fuel the Next Leg

ON Semiconductor Corporation – now branding itself as onsemi – has had a wild 2025. After a bruising cyclical downturn and an electric-vehicle hangover, the stock has snapped back sharply into December as investors refocus on AI data centers and advanced power chips.

As of the afternoon of December 4, 2025, ON trades around $56 per share, giving the company a roughly $20–21 billion market cap, with a 52‑week range of about $31 to $71 and a trailing P/E near 69 but a forward P/E closer to the high teens. ^[1]

Below is a deep dive into the latest numbers, news, forecasts and big strategic moves shaping ON Semiconductor stock right now.

How ON Semiconductor Stock Is Trading Now

Recent price action has been anything but boring:

Over the last week, ON shares have jumped about 15%.
Over the last month, they’re up roughly 18%, even though they remain down about 7% year-to-date and around 13% over the past year, according to Simply Wall St’s performance data. ^[2]

On the fundamentals side, recent data aggregators show:

Current price: about $56 (intraday on Dec 4).
Market cap: roughly $20.6 billion. ^[3]
52‑week high / low: about $70.58 / $31.04. ^[4]
Valuation snapshot:
- Trailing P/E: ~69
- Forward P/E: ~17–18
- Price‑to‑sales: ~3.3x
- Price‑to‑book: ~2.6x ^[5]

Short interest is not trivial either, at around 16% of float, which helps explain how news can trigger exaggerated swings. ^[6]

In short: the stock has ripped higher in recent weeks, but it’s doing that on top of already rich trailing multiples and volatile sentiment.

Q3 2025 Earnings: Beating Estimates in a Down Year

ON’s third-quarter 2025 results, released on November 3, are still the backbone of the current thesis.

Headline numbers

According to Reuters and the company’s earnings call coverage: ^[7]

Revenue:$1.55 billion
- Beat consensus of about $1.52 billion
- Down ~12% year-over-year, but up ~6% sequentially
Adjusted EPS:$0.63
- Beat consensus of $0.59
- Down from $0.99 in the same quarter last year ^[8]
Non‑GAAP gross margin: roughly 38%
Cash from operations: about $419 million
Free cash flow: around $372 million, more than 20% of revenue ^[9]

By segment mix (high-level, per the call and media coverage), automotive and industrial still dominate and actually grew sequentially:

Automotive revenue: up about 7% quarter-over-quarter
Industrial revenue: up about 5% quarter-over-quarter ^[10]

The swing factor is where the strength is coming from:

AI data centers: Power-management products for AI infrastructure are a bright spot and helped ON beat estimates.
EV silicon carbide (SiC): Demand from some auto customers has slowed due to weak EV uptake in Europe and North America, hurting year-on-year comparisons. ^[11]

Q4 2025 guidance

For Q4 2025, management guided to: ^[12]

Revenue:$1.48–$1.58 billion
Adjusted EPS:$0.57–$0.67

Zacks’ breakdown frames expectations this way: ^[13]

Consensus Q4 EPS: about $0.62, a ~35% year-over-year decline
Full‑year 2025 EPS: around $2.36, down ~40–35% vs 2024
Full‑year 2025 revenue: roughly $5.99–6.14 billion, down about 13–15% vs 2024

So 2025 is shaping up as a clear down-cycle year in earnings and revenue, even though the company is still beating estimates and printing strong free cash flow.

The $6 Billion Buyback: Management’s Giant Vote of Confidence

The single biggest “signal” in recent weeks is ON’s massive share repurchase plan.

On November 18, 2025, the board authorized a new $6 billion share repurchase program over three years, starting January 1, 2026, once the current $3 billion program expires at year‑end. ^[14]

Key points from onsemi and market coverage: ^[15]

Under the prior authorization, ON has already repurchased about $2.1 billion of stock over the last three years, including roughly 100% of its 2025 free cash flow.
The new $6 billion plan represents the potential to repurchase over 30% of outstanding shares – MarketBeat pegs it around 32.7%.
Announcements around the buyback coincided with a sharp rally in the stock, as traders re-priced the equity on reduced future share count and a louder “we think we’re undervalued” message from management.

Simply Wall St’s recent valuation note explicitly frames the buyback as part of why investors are suddenly re‑rating ON, even as trailing earnings remain under pressure. ^[16]

From a purely mechanical standpoint, if ON keeps free cash flow at current levels and channels that into buybacks, EPS can rise even in a flat revenue environment. The flip side: this is a very aggressive capital return program for a cyclical, capital‑intensive chipmaker.

SiC Mega-Fab and EU Money: Building the Power Chip Future in Czechia

In parallel with showering cash on shareholders, ON is also doubling down on its silicon carbide (SiC) roadmap.

€1.64 billion Czech SiC fab with €450 million in state aid

On November 21, the European Commission approved a €450 million Czech state aid package to support ON’s new SiC power device manufacturing facility in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. ^[17]

Highlights:

Total project size: about €1.64 billion
EU & Czech officials describe it as Europe’s first fully integrated 8‑inch SiC fab, covering crystal growth, wafer processing and device fabrication. ^[18]
Commercial operations are expected around 2027. ^[19]
The fab is positioned as strategic for the European Green Deal, supplying chips for EVs, charging infrastructure, renewable energy and industrial power systems.

TrendForce notes that ON is treating SiC as a core growth engine, with new 750–1200V SiC MOSFETs targeting EV traction inverters and next‑gen power systems, and that the Czech plant is central to achieving scale and cost reductions as the industry transitions from 6‑inch to 8‑inch wafers. ^[20]

In other words: ON is using a down-cycle year to build out a structurally advantaged SiC footprint that is partially paid for by European taxpayers. Not a bad trick.

GaN Alliance with Innoscience: Filling in the Low‑/Mid‑Voltage Gap

Just this week, ON added gallium nitride (GaN) to its “power trinity” of silicon + SiC + GaN.

On December 2, 2025, onsemi and China-based Innoscience signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on low‑ and mid‑voltage GaN power devices (40–200V). ^[21]

According to onsemi and TrendForce:

The partnership aims to combine onsemi’s system and power design expertise with Innoscience’s 8‑inch GaN manufacturing base.
Initial focus is on 40–200V GaN devices, with sampling expected in the first half of 2026. ^[22]
Target markets include industrial and factory automation, EV subsystems, telecom infrastructure, consumer power supplies and AI data centers, where GaN can deliver higher efficiency and lower losses versus legacy silicon solutions. ^[23]

This comes on top of onsemi’s earlier collaboration with NVIDIA announced in July to enable 800 VDC power architectures for next-generation AI data centers, where ON’s SiC and advanced power devices are used in high‑efficiency power distribution from the grid all the way to the GPU. ^[24]

Taken together, ON is trying to position itself as the vertically integrated power platform for:

EV inverters, on‑board chargers and fast chargers (SiC)
Renewables and energy storage (SiC and high‑voltage silicon) ^[25]
AI data centers (SiC + silicon + GaN power trees)

That’s the growth story the market is trying to price… while the income statement still reflects a cyclical slump.

M&A and Portfolio Moves: Feeding the AI Data Center Beast

ON has also been selectively buying technology to deepen its power portfolio.

Vcore Power Technology acquisition

On October 27, 2025, onsemi completed the acquisition of Vcore Power Technology from Aura Semiconductor. The company describes Vcore as expanding its capabilities “across the power tree for AI data center solutions.” ^[26]

Combined with earlier deals – including the acquisition of SiC JFET technology and business from Qorvo – ON is building a more complete stack of high‑efficiency power conversion, regulation and protection devices for AI server racks and hyperscale data centers. ^[27]

Institutional and hedge fund activity

Institutional investors are very active in the name:

MarketBeat reports Channing Capital Management took a new position of 167,140 shares (~$8.8 million), while Norges Bank and others have built much larger stakes, helping push institutional ownership to nearly 98%. ^[28]
QuiverQuant data shows a mix of big additions and reductions, with FMR, UBS and Two Sigma among the most prominent recent buyers, and BlackRock, Ameriprise and Barclays reducing positions. ^[29]

Insiders, meanwhile, have mostly sold:

The CEO Hassane El‑Khoury sold around 15,000 shares, and another executive sold about 5,300 shares in the last six months, with no reported open‑market insider buys over that period, per QuiverQuant. ^[30]

So the shareholder base is heavily institutional, with hedge funds actively trading and insiders more in “liquidity” than “buying the dip” mode.

What Analysts Are Forecasting for ON Stock

Depending on which data provider you trust, ON is either a cautious “Hold” or a modest “Buy” – which is exactly what you’d expect when a cyclical stock is mid‑rebound.

Consensus rating and price targets

MarketBeat:
- Average rating: “Hold”
- Mix: 14 Buy vs 15 Hold ratings
- Average 12‑month price target: about $59.12, with a range from $50 to $85, implying roughly 5–6% upside from around $56. ^[31]
StockAnalysis:
- Labels the average analyst rating as “Buy”
- Average price target: roughly $59–$59.04, again implying a mid‑single‑digit percentage upside. ^[32]
Wealthyhood:
- Aggregates 31 analysts: about 56% Buy, 41% Hold, 3% Sell, with an average target near $58.70. ^[33]
QuiverQuant:
- Tracks 20 analysts over the last six months with a median target around $56, and highlights specific calls like Morgan Stanley at $56, TD Cowen at $60, Rosenblatt at $50 and others in the $51–60 band. ^[34]

So the street’s message is basically: “We like the long-term story, but after the recent bounce and with 2025 earnings under pressure, the near-term upside from here looks moderate.”

Earnings and revenue trajectories

On the fundamental forecasts, the different sources are broadly consistent:

2025 (this year)
- Revenue: around $6.0–6.1 billion, down roughly 13–15% vs 2024. ^[35]
- EPS: about $2.36, down ~35–40% vs 2024’s ~$3.6+. ^[36]
2026
- Revenue: consensus around $6.5 billion, a ~5–6% rebound. ^[37]
- EPS: around $2.9–3.0, implying ~24–28% growth from 2025’s trough. ^[38]

Zacks currently rates ON a Rank #3 (Hold), noting that earnings estimate revisions have been slightly negative in the near term but that the stock still earns a “B” value grade versus peers due to its relative valuation multiples. ^[39]

Valuation: Is the Rebound Getting Ahead of Itself?

This is where opinions start to diverge.

Trailing vs forward lenses

Simply Wall St’s December 4 piece points out that ON: ^[40]

Has surged ~15% in a week and ~18% over a month, but
Still trades on a P/E around 70–72x, well above both the broader semiconductor industry and peer averages on a trailing basis.

Their discounted cash flow (DCF) model pegs “fair value” around $55.30 per share, only about 3% below the current price – essentially “roughly fairly valued” in DCF terms – but flags the high multiple relative to current earnings as a risk.

Forward-looking metrics look more forgiving:

Using consensus 2026 EPS around $3.02, the forward P/E drops into the high teens. ^[41]
Price‑to‑sales around 3.3x and price‑to‑book about 2.6x are not outrageous for a high‑margin, structurally growing power semiconductor player, but they’re not “deep value” either. ^[42]

So the valuation story is basically:

If you believe EPS really will rebound robustly in 2026–2027 as SiC ramps, AI data center wins accumulate and EV demand normalizes, the current price looks like paying a fair or slightly elevated tariff for a quality franchise.
If you think the down-cycle lasts longer, or that SiC competition and EV weakness prove structural rather than cyclical, the stock could be pricing in too much optimism after its latest bounce.

Key Risks to Watch

From recent S&P Global and industry analysis, plus the company’s own messaging, several risks stand out: ^[43]

Cyclical downturn in core markets
- Analysts expect double‑digit revenue declines in 2025 across ON’s main business lines, with SiC revenue projected to fall around 18% and non‑SiC revenue about 17% this year before recovering.
- All three business units are forecast to show double-digit drops in 2025, particularly in intelligent sensing.
EV and auto demand uncertainty
- Weak EV sales in Europe and North America have already forced ON to reset expectations for SiC volumes. A prolonged EV slowdown, or aggressive price competition from rivals like STMicroelectronics, Infineon or Chinese suppliers, could delay ON’s SiC payback.
Execution risk on capex-heavy projects
- The Czech 8‑inch SiC fab is capital-intensive and technologically ambitious. Any delays, yield issues or cost overruns could compress returns on invested capital, especially if demand recovers more slowly than planned. ^[44]
Balance sheet & capital allocation
- ON’s leverage is moderate but not zero – debt-to-assets is around 39%, and management is committing to a very large buyback at a time when it is also ramping up capex. ^[45]
- If the cycle worsens, the company could find itself pulled between funding growth projects and maintaining buybacks.
Competitive and geopolitical risk
- ON competes directly with major global power‑semi players and relies heavily on global supply chains and cross‑border demand. Regulatory shifts, trade restrictions or changes in state aid regimes (especially in the EU and China) could alter the economics of some projects.

Also worth noting: ON pays no dividend, so shareholder returns are almost entirely tied to price appreciation and buybacks, which is great in a bull phase and less fun in a prolonged slump. ^[46]

Why the Bull Case Still Has Fans

Despite all of that, a lot of smart money is clearly leaning long ON, which explains the heavy institutional ownership and the mid‑single‑digit upside in the consensus targets.

The bullish argument, stitched together from recent analyst and industry commentary, looks roughly like this: ^[47]

AI data centers are not slowing down.
ON’s power solutions are increasingly tied to the build‑out of energy‑hungry AI “factories,” where efficiency gains matter as much as raw compute. Collaborations with NVIDIA and AI‑optimized power architectures give it a differentiated angle.
SiC remains a long‑term secular winner.
Even with a rough 2025, SiC content per EV and per fast charger is rising. ON’s vertically integrated, EU‑backed 8‑inch SiC fab should give it scale and cost advantages by the late 2020s.
GaN adds another lever.
The Innoscience MoU opens the door to high‑volume 8‑inch GaN for lower‑voltage power applications, making ON more of a one‑stop power shop for customers.
Capital allocation is shareholder‑friendly.
A $6 billion buyback on a ~$20B market cap is a loud statement. If management times it anywhere near the cycle trough, the EPS math can get very attractive once growth returns.
Balance sheet is still solid.
Despite the capex and buybacks, ON maintains healthy liquidity and free cash flow generation, and valuation isn’t insane on forward numbers if the recovery plays out.

The Bottom Line on ON Semiconductor Stock in December 2025

ON Semiconductor in early December 2025 is a classic “good business in a noisy moment” story:

Near‑term reality:
Revenue and EPS are down sharply year-over-year. Auto and industrial demand have wobbled. Valuation is high on trailing earnings, and the stock has already bounced hard in a matter of weeks.
Medium‑term plan:
Management is betting billions on SiC, GaN and AI data center power, backed by EU money, strategic acquisitions and marquee partnerships. Analysts mostly see 2025 as a trough, with EPS and revenue growing again in 2026.
Market verdict (for now):
Wall Street’s blended view – Hold-to-Buy with mid‑single‑digit upside – is basically saying: “We think ON survives the down-cycle just fine and grows again, but after the latest rally you’re not stealing it.” ^[48]