Synaptics Inc

NASDAQ:SYNA

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Synaptics, Inc. Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Munjal Shah, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Munjal Shah, executive]

Thank you, Brianna. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today on Synaptics' Third Quarter Fiscal 2024 Conference Call. My name is Munjal Shah and I'm Head of Investor Relations. With me on today's call are Michael Hurlston, our President and CEO; and Matt Padfield, our Vice President of Finance. This call is being broadcast live over the web and can be accessed from the Investor Relations section of the company's website at synaptics.com. A copy of this prepared remarks and a supplemental slide presentation are also posted on the Investor Relations website. In addition to the company's GAAP results, management will provide supplementary results on a non-GAAP basis, which excludes share-based compensation, acquisition-related costs, certain other noncash and recurring or nonrecurring items. Please refer to the press release issued after market close today for a detailed reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP results. Information can be accessed from the Investor Relations section of the company's website at synaptics.com. Additionally, during the course of this conference call, Synaptics will make forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements give our current expectations and projections relating to our financial condition, results of operations, plans, objectives, future performance, and business. Although Synaptics believes our estimates and assumptions to be reasonable, they are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties beyond our control and may prove to be inaccurate. Synaptics cautions that actual results may differ materially from any future performance suggested in the company's forward-looking statements. We refer you to the company's current and periodic reports filed with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly report on Form 10-Q for important risk factors that that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Synaptics expressly disclaims any obligation to update this forward-looking information. I will now turn the call over to Michael.

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Thanks, Munjal. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's call. This quarter, we delivered results that were in line with expectations. Revenue, margin, and EPS met or were slightly above our prior guidance. Growth in core IoT offset seasonal weakness in mobile. Over the last few months, we started building the foundation for our second driver of core IoT growth, our line of embedded AI IoT processors. That initiative culminated in the launch of our Astra processor platform at Embedded World in Germany in April. Astra is an AI-native IoT compute platform targeting a $20 billion-plus semiconductor silicon market opportunity for IoT edge IoT devices. Running AI models on device rather than in a data center gives devices security, power, and latency advantages. Synaptics differentiates by incorporating AI in every part of the flow from chip development to software to the tool chain. In addition, with a novel Gearing approach, we can deliver more inferences in any system power level than competition. We believe that the totality of our approach will make Synaptics the absolute leader when it comes to delivering AI processing solutions for IoT devices. With the Astra framework, which contemplates AI end-to-end, customers can bring their data to run on Synaptics AI reference models, or bring their own AI models and optimize them to run efficiently and securely on Synaptics SoCs. Customers don't have to build a new AI model for every application increasing adoption, efficiency, and time to market. The Astra platform includes a family of processors, an open software platform, an AI development toolkit and model framework, as well as seamless wireless connectivity. The SL family of processors are AI-enabled MPUs targeted for the edge, and our first product to be released under the Astra umbrella. Two and four core versions are now sampling. The SR-series of processors are AI-enabled MCUs and incorporate our pioneering gearing technique, which actively manages power as interesting requirements increase or decrease. A flexible, innovative software platform extends across both product families and supports Linux and Android as well as leading RTOS offerings. In addition, both families leverage the deep institutional knowledge at Synaptics around computer vision and audio machine learning algorithms. The launch of the Astra family of processors in Embedded World was a great success with customer interest from a broad-based set of industries, including automotive, consumer, industrial, security and home appliances. Thousands of customers and developers visited our showcase and the team generated a significant number of qualified customer leads. We hosted multiple technical presentations and a first of its kind on hand -- first-of-a-kind hands-on embedded AI workshop for product designers, creating strong demand for the Astra development kit. To top it all off, Synaptics SL-series embedded compute processors received the best in show award ahead of solutions from several incumbent suppliers and competitors. Astra is an offshoot from our application-specific processors, which are currently in volume production, we saw improvement in this part of core IoT as inventory has generally returned to a more normal level. We had a major win at Deutsche Telekom for our video processors with AI capability, which will contribute to revenue in fiscal 2025. In addition, we had a win on Cisco's next-generation AI-enabled collaboration devices with our high-end quad core processor. In both wins, we were able to pull through wireless connectivity products, continuing our successful cross-selling initiative. While Astra grab the headlines, our wireless product delivered the news, driving core IoT revenue high -- 26% higher compared to the prior quarter. Wireless product inventory has been worked down except for a couple of SKUs. Design wins and wearables, security systems, home automation and action cameras are starting to ramp. We expect these trends to continue driving sequential revenue growth in core IoT next quarter. In addition, we remain on track to sample both our first broad market device and Wi-Fi 7 device later this year. The enterprise and automotive products were roughly flat on quarter. However, next quarter, we expect to see growth in this piece of our business. The volume of our docking station products is beginning to increase again, though demand is off historic norms. In addition, our PC Touchpad and fingerprint solutions are tracking to normal seasonal patterns, and we have opportunities to take some market share. Our HPD solutions are performing as expected, and we continue to see opportunities to increase share as platforms start to refresh. Demand across the rest of the enterprise products is suppressed as IT spending on hardware and accessories continues to be at historically low levels with no signs of an uptick. Further out in the calendar year, we keep hearing talk of a refresh cycle and new AI-PCs driving unit volume higher, which would be good for us. However, we yet to see orders consistent with anything like this. In automotive, our TDI products are seeing strong demand and performing better than expected. Our design wins at several OEMs in North America and Europe, including Audi, Chevy, Ford, Porsche, and Volkswagen are starting to ramp. Additionally, some other OEMs are extending their current models for another 1 to 2 years, which benefits us given our high market share in these designs. The strength in our TDI products is somewhat offset by a slowdown in legacy DDICs. Longer-term, we would expect to increase content per car with SmartBridges and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combos. Our mobile products performed largely in line with our expectations and revenue was down from the prior quarter, driven both by seasonality on our touch products and by a decline in revenue from our large legacy DDIC customer. As that product finally goes to 0, we would expect at some point in the next fiscal year, it will present a headwind to fiscal 2025 mobile revenue. Aside from that, we expect our shipments to track seasonality for high-end Android phones. We see potential opportunities for further growth as the adoption of OLED technology expands into mid-tier phones. To summarize, we continue to be excited about our core IoT business. For the first time, Synaptics is selling differentiated general-purpose products into large potential markets. Meanwhile, our traditional product lines where we have leadership positions in smaller, more defined markets are beginning to recover as inventory burns off and demand slowly returns. The combination of the 2 gives us confidence as we enter our next fiscal year. Before I pass the baton, I wanted to update progress on our CFO search. We have had discussions with dozens of highly qualified internal and external candidates. If all goes according to plan, we should have someone in place well before our next earnings call. Now, let me turn the call over to Matt for a review of our third quarter financial results and fourth quarter outlook.

[Matt Padfield, executive]

Thanks, Michael, and good afternoon to everyone. I will first review the financial results for our recently completed quarter, and then provide an outlook for our current quarter. Revenue for the March quarter was $237.3 million, which was slightly above the midpoint of our guidance. Revenue from core IoT, enterprise and automotive, and mobile were 20%, 57% and 23%, respectively. Year-over-year, consolidated March quarter revenue was down 27%, but flat compared to the prior quarter, which reflects continued stabilization in our business. Core IoT revenue was up 26% sequentially, but down 49% year-over-year. We believe inventories are now at normal levels in this product sector, and we expect to continue to see sequential growth in our fiscal fourth quarter. In Enterprise and Automotive, March quarter revenue was down 1% sequentially and down 30% year-over-year. Several enterprise products are stabilizing, though there are still pockets of excess inventory, which we expect to work through in the coming quarters. For the March quarter, our mobile product revenue was up 33% year-over-year, but down 12% from the prior quarter, mainly due to seasonality in our touch controller products for the Android ecosystem. Our legacy DDIC product sales were also down this quarter, and we expect them to continue to decline over the next year. In fiscal year 2024, our primary customer for these products accounted for low to mid-single-digit percentage of the company's total revenues. During the quarter, we had 1 customer greater than 10% of revenue at approximately 12%. For the March quarter, our GAAP gross margin was 46.5%, which includes $14.3 million of intangible asset amortization and $1 million of share-based compensation costs. March quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 52.9% in line with the midpoint of our guidance range. GAAP operating expenses in the March quarter were $127.7 million, which includes share-based compensation of $28.9 million and intangible asset amortization of $4 million. March quarter non-GAAP operating expense of $95 million was within our guidance range and up $3 million from the preceding quarter. Our prior quarter had a benefit from a partial reversal in the accrual for our bonus program. We continue to maintain tight discipline around our operating expenses. During the quarter, we recorded a GAAP tax benefit of $5.2 million and maintained our expected non-GAAP tax rate of 17%, creating a $4.3 million expense. March quarter GAAP net loss was $18.1 million or a GAAP net loss of $0.46 per basic share. Non-GAAP net income in the March quarter was $21 million, a decrease of 7% from the prior quarter and a 72% decrease from the same quarter a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $0.53 was above the midpoint of our guidance range. Now, turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $829 million of cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, a 2% sequential decrease. Cash flow used in operations was $13.2 million due to approximately $27 million of tax payments associated with prior fiscal years. Capital expenditures were $9 million and depreciation for the quarter was $6.8 million. Receivables at the end of March were $144.7 million and days sales outstanding were 55 days, an increase of 7 days from the last quarter. Ending inventory balance was $114.1 million, down $11 million as we continue to cautiously manage our inventory purchases. Our calculated days of inventory on our balance sheet also declined to 91% compared to 99% at the end of the prior quarter. Now, let me turn to our June quarter outlook. Our business is seeing stabilization as we have worked down channel inventories across multiple product areas. However, we are seeing a slow recovery due to curtailed spending by enterprises on hardware products. At a consolidated level, we anticipate revenue in the June quarter to be in the range of $230 million to $260 million, an increase of approximately 3% from the March quarter at the midpoint. Our core IoT products are expected to benefit from the normalization of channel inventory levels, improving demand and the ramp up design wins. We expect double-digit sequential revenue growth to continue in the June quarter. Enterprise and Automotive products in aggregate are expected to improve slightly in the June quarter. Mobile is expected to decline due to seasonality and declines in legacy products. Given these dynamics, we expect our revenue mix from core IoT, enterprise and automotive and mobile products in the June quarter to be approximately 22%, 57% and 21%, respectively. We expect GAAP gross margin for the June quarter to be in the range of 44.5% to 46.5%. We expect non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 52.5% to 54.5%, a small improvement from the March quarter. We expect GAAP operating expenses in the June quarter to be in the range of $127 million to $132 million, which includes intangible amortization and share-based compensation. We expect non-GAAP operating expenses in the June quarter to be in the range of $97 million to $101 million. GAAP net loss per basic share for our June quarter is expected to be in the range of $0.45 to $0.85, and non-GAAP net income per diluted share is anticipated to be in the range of $0.35 to $0.75 per share on an estimated 39.9 million fully diluted shares. We expect both GAAP and non-GAAP net interest expense to be approximately $6 million in the June quarter. This wraps up our prepared remarks. I'd like to now turn the call over to the operator to start the Q&A session.

[Operator]

At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Christopher Rolland of Susquehanna.

[Christopher Rolland, analyst]

Thanks, guys. And congrats on the solid quarter. I guess my question is inventory, I guess, for Core, you described it as more normal level. I would love to know kind of what you see as the overhang going forward? And then where inventory has most challenges and least challenges? That would be great to start.

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes. Chris, good to hear from you. I hope you're well. Thanks for the positive note. Generally speaking, I would say that as we said on the last call, inventory has been worked down. We feel that our -- the challenge that we're largely facing, particularly enterprise is more demand-related, as we were working through the inventory, I think demand fell, and we have this challenge that we highlighted in the prepared remarks around enterprise spending for accessories and kind of small hardware, which is largely where we play. There are still pockets of inventory. A couple of notable examples is in our audio headset business, our enterprise headsets. A little bit in our docking station area, particularly around our display link product line. But generally, I would say we're kind of out of inventory jail, and we feel good. And as demand returns, we should see a pull up in the numbers.

[Christopher Rolland, analyst]

Great. And then just so we can kind of understand the legacy DDIC drag. Roughly how big was it in '24? And how big would you expect it in '25?

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

I mean, I think we called Matt. Matt said in his remarks, sort of a mid- to low percentage of revenue. I think that we'll see a good part of that continue for the next couple of quarters. But probably by the second half of the year, that will go down to a de minimis level, Chris. I mean, it probably hit 0 by some part in the fourth quarter. So, it's a drag -- not a big one, but it's something that we thought we should call out. I think everybody has been aware of it for some time. And it hasn't gone into our thinking around the numbers because we knew it was eventually going to go to 0, but I thought the time was right to highlight that it's coming off the table.

[Operator]

Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Quinn Bolton of Needham & Company.

[Quinn Bolton, analyst]

Thinking about the puts and takes between the inventory kind of normalizing and soft demand. I mean, several quarters ago, I think you guys thought you might be under shipping, end consumption by $100 million or more. Now that you're at the tail end of the inventory correction and guiding revenue up a smidge, it feels like consumption must be down meaningfully. And I'm wondering if you had any updated thoughts on consumption? Should we be thinking something that $245 million is indicative of where consumption is across a good part of the enterprise IoT base? Or do you think consumption is higher than that given there are still some pockets of inventory out there that you just mentioned?

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes, Quinn. No, look, I think that the natural demand is something significantly higher than where we are. I mean, we stated that a bunch of times. I think what sort of surprised us is we had 2 pieces moving in parallel. We had inventory and as we're working through the inventory, we also hit a low point in demand. And so, right now, we think we're at a very low point in the natural demand. And as enterprise spending returns, as automotive returns, we would expect to see a pull up in the numbers. So, we don't believe, by any stretch that sort of $2.45, $2.50, $2.55 is where we should be. We think that when demand normalizes, and we think demand is still quite a bit lower than it would naturally be, we're going to see a pull up in our numbers. So, I think the surprise, again, is as we work through the inventory situation, we hit a point where the current demand is far lower than we'd expect natural demand to be.

[Quinn Bolton, analyst]

Got it. Okay. That's pretty clear. And then I guess just thinking about signs of a recovery, what things are you sort of tracking that might point to a recovery? Is it kind of things like bookings, backlog? Are the customers particularly interest rate sensitive and you think the demand might not turn until we get a rate cut hopefully later this year. What do you think the biggest factors might be to kickstart the demand, and especially the enterprise segment, which seems to be softest?

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes. I think, the first thing is obviously, IT budgets going away from sort of AI and to big compute these large language models that are running in the data center and back toward PCs, monitors, docking stations, places where we have a presence. I mean, I think we talked about it with you in the last call, it seems a little bit counter because IT spending is flat or even slightly up, if you look at the numbers. But the underlying detail is that the spending on gadgets, on PCs, on docking stations, on headsets, on enterprise telephony is clearly way down and the balance of the budget is going towards IoT. I'd say that's one thing. I think the second thing for us, too, is we've got a bunch of new product introductions that are beginning to kick in. We used -- as we talked to you about, we used the downturn to invest in the business to start running on our wireless platform, some new docking station products are beginning to kick in. So, we've got different parts of the portfolio that are going to start to ramp, and that should, even if demand remains soft, our NPI introduction should help us pull those numbers up.

[Quinn Bolton, analyst]

Maybe the last clarification for me. The core IoT growing double digits in June. I know it's still a fairly low base. Do you think that double-digit growth rate continues in the back half of the calendar year?

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes. Certainly, it's going to grow. I mean, we've been growing obviously very hot. We talked about double-digit growth in that business over an extended period of time. We're kind of outgrowing that right now. So, I would say it will grow. It certainly is going to grow. The growth rate is TBD, and we haven't provided that guidance.

[Operator]

And one moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Kevin Cassidy of Rosenblatt Securities.

[Kevin Cassidy, analyst]

As long as we're on the topic of the wireless connectivity. The Wi-Fi standards, can you say what your revenue split is right now? And how quickly is Wi-Fi growing? And then my follow-up question will be around Wi-Fi 7, and what are the forecast for that as far as the adoption rate?

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes. Kevin, good to hear from you. Number one, we don't break it out. I think that now we're trying to give you and the rest of the folks that follow the stock a better look into the business by breaking out core IoT. But within core IoT, we certainly don't break out what's processors and what's wireless. I will say it's mostly wireless. I mean, today, our processor line is there. We talked about some wins in that space in the prepared remarks. But generally, Wi-Fi is the story. Wi-Fi is doing well. We're getting that business back on track. It was plagued by quite a bit of inventory, and now we're starting to see that business come back in a fairly appreciable way. So, we feel pretty good about that. For us, you touched on it and you might have a different question around it when we get there. But Wi-Fi 7 is -- we haven't launched Wi-Fi 7. Wi-Fi 7 generally still isn't available from an infrastructure standpoint. Our biggest issue right now is actually transitioning the customer base from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6. And we've got a full suite of Wi-Fi 6 products. Our mix is still less than 50% on Wi-Fi 6. So, we see a pretty significant opportunity to transition the customer base from Wi-Fi 4 and 5 to 6. We will, as I said in the prepared remarks, be introducing a Wi-Fi 7 ship at the end of the year. And look, we think we're going to be first for an IoT class product that incorporates the Wi-Fi 7 standard. But I think that's going to be a while before it really grabs any sort of meaningful foothold.

[Kevin Cassidy, analyst]

Okay. Great. And on the docking station, enterprise is slow, but is there inventory on top of that? Does the inventory still have to be depleted? And we're just waiting for the enterprise come back and then it might still be a quarter or so before we see that business growing again.

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes. So, I mean, first, Kevin, it did grow. So, I think we're coming off the bottom on dock. There still are pockets of inventory. I think I may have said to a previous question that we have kind of 2 halves of the business, as you know well, the display link and display port sides of the business. The display link, which is the dock anywhere has a bit more inventory than I think we need to work through. And that's a big piece of our gross margin profile. So, that's been particularly slow. The display port side of the business, I think we're probably at equilibrium now. That's the piece that kind of grew on quarter. And that's facing more of this demand challenge that I highlighted in Quinn's question, where we see pretty suppressed demand across the enterprise and automotive portfolio. As demand normalizes, we'd expect that docking business universally to pull back up.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Krish Sankar of TD Cowen.

[Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan, analyst]

Michael, I had 2 of them. First one on gross margins. You keep hearing about lagging edge foundry vehicle prices have come down, but you're not seeing any gross margin benefit for you. So, I'm just kind of curious, is your gross margins really tied to volume or in the enterprise auto segment? Or is there something else going on?

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes, Krish. Fair question. I mean, I think there's 2 factors for us. One, and the dominant factor is mix. And we -- you and I have talked about this a couple of times. And our mix gross margin profile, the enterprise and automotive is our strongest driver. And again, there's mix issues within enterprise and automotive. But the slowest part right now of our E&A business is also our highest margin. That's comment one. Comment two, I would agree with you that the foundry pricing seems to move a lot. We are partnered with one particular foundry guys. As you know, we kind of moved our strategy to be very, very heavily weighted toward one supplier. That one supplier has been the slowest to move on pricing. So, I would say that we are hearing the same things you are, that there are price -- there's price relief across the semiconductor supply chain. I think that's less true with some of the bigger suppliers, and we are certainly partnered with one of the biggest, and that particular supplier has been less apt to move and respond to kind of current pricing conditions.

[Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan, analyst]

Got it. Got it. That's very helpful, Michael. And then a follow-up, thanks to some of the color you gave on the Astra platform. It seems like you've seen some IoT devices for AI come out lately, but the issue seems to be around latency. From Astra standpoint, you require a smaller more optimized AI model to run full inference on devices? Are you seeing the model prices today? You can actually run full in terms with no latency with your Astra platform.

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes, Krish, again, very good question. Look, I think on Astra, and you know well, you know the technology. We can't run large language models or gene sequencing or things like that. But within the 2 and 4 core portfolio, we can run a whole gamut of AI models. And those AI models are large in size. They come from a traditional AI source such as an NVIDIA it will be trained in the data center. Our trick is we have a compiler that takes those models and compile them into our code size. And at least as far as I understand it, and we've spent a lot of time on this with our division head, those models run without latency problems. I mean, that's one of the advantages that we highlight in this business, that we have very little latency, high security, and high-power efficiency across this product line. And that's one of the advantages we bring. Rather than having to go back and forth to the data center, you can run these AI models on chip. And obviously, that has significant latency advantages.

[Operator]

And one moment for our next question. Our final question comes from Peter Peng of JP Morgan.

[Peter Peng, analyst]

I have 2 as well. Just for the wireless portion in your core IoT, it was kind of at that $200 million revenue run rate. I think where are we? And are you still confident in getting back to those levels?

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes, Peter. No, I mean, we're obviously very confident in being able to get back to those levels. I think like we've been talking about with enterprise and automotive, there is a demand issue in the wireless. Some of it's consumer-facing. We actually have quite a bit of it that's enterprise-facing. Our inventory, as we said in the prepared remarks is largely worked through. So, now it's a little bit of a suppressed demand environment. We'd expect that we continue to work through that, demand will return. And when it does, we'd expect that to go to $200 million and beyond. And then in addition, as we talked about, we have a lot of new products or new products that are coming online, and we also have new design wins that are coming online. So, the sum total of those obviously gives us a lot of confidence in that wireless business. We would expect -- we haven't seen that snap back to $200 million, but we'd expect to get there and beyond as time goes forward.

[Peter Peng, analyst]

Great. And then my thoughts on your mobile. So, that low single digit, that's like almost a $9 million to $10 million revenue drop off per quarter. And so, you have -- you talked about potentially winning some in the mid-tier Android space and then you combine that with the Android recovery. So, like as we kind of think about Cisco 25 for your mobile, is this going to be flat, down, up? Any indication would be helpful.

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

Yes. I mean, probably I would say too early to call. You got the puts and takes, right. I mean, I think that in general, we'll be sort of a low double-digit type of hole that we have to fill due to the DDIC socket. I think the numbers are about right, and we've talked about that on lots of different calls. So, I think that you have the framing of it roughly correct. We are winning. We did really well last year with flipping one of the large Android customers over. We seem to be holding up really well in China. So, our China handset business is very, very strong, and we have high market share. We do, as you called out, we expect to win now in the mid-tier. So, kind of a sum total of that. I would expect that on balance, flattish is probably where we end up in that business. But again, too early to sort of call.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Michael Hurlston, CEO, for closing remarks.

[Michael Hurlston, executive]

I'd just like to thank all of you for joining us today. We look forward to speaking to you at our upcoming investor conferences during the quarter. Thanks a lot.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.