What happened Shares of ON Semiconductor (NASDAQ: ON) are up a solid 14% in 11 a.m. EDT trading Monday after the semiconductor manufacturer crushed analyst expectations for Q2 earnings -- and didn't do half bad on sales, either. Expected to report a $0.49 pro forma profit on $1.62 billion in sales in fiscal Q2 2022, ON Semiconductor instead posted earnings of $0.63 per share on sales of $1.67 billion this morning. Image source: Getty Images. So what Actual earnings when calculated according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) were only $0.42 per share -- but even this was a big improvement over Q2 last year, when ON Semiconductor broke even. On the top line, second-quarter sales grew 38% year over year, and ON Semiconductor transformed this big sales gain into an even bigger increase in profits with the help of an improved gross profit margin of 38.3%, which was up 310 basis points over last year. Operating profit margin improved nearly fivefold to 16.9%. Now what And the news gets better from there. "We expect that the ongoing structural changes in the business should enable us to report strong results on a sustainable basis," predicted CEO Hassane El-Khoury. The company is enjoying "accelerating demand for our products in our strategic automotive and industrial end-markets" this year, and forecasts "incremental supply and revenue growth in the second half of 2021," over and above what it saw in the first half. For Q3 in particular, ON Semiconductor now believes it will take in between $1.66 billion and $1.76 billion in revenue, earn a 38.8% to 40.9% gross profit margin on that revenue, and end up with a GAAP net profit of between $0.53 and $0.63 per share on the bottom line ($0.68 to $0.80 pro forma). And if those numbers are even close to correct, ON Semiconductor should beat Q3 earnings just as soundly as it beat second-quarter earnings today. 10 stocks we like better than ON SemiconductorWhen our award-winning analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* They just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and ON Semiconductor wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of June 7, 2021 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source