Benchmark Electronics Inc
NYSE:BHE
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Benchmark Electronics Inc
Earnings Call Analysis
Q4-2023 Analysis
Benchmark Electronics Inc
In the face of revenue softening, the company displayed solid operational execution in the fourth quarter of 2023. Though total revenue decreased, hitting $691 million down from the previous year, the non-GAAP gross margin impressively grew, exceeding 10%, both sequentially and year-over-year. Importantly, non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) were reported at $0.58, topping the midpoint of the company's guidance. Over the full fiscal year, the company reported revenue of $2.8 billion and achieved a non-GAAP EPS of $2.04, demonstrating resilience and adaptability in challenging conditions.
The company's ability to generate free cash flow was particularly striking, with $126 million generated in Q4 and $97 million for the entire year, surpassing the company's objective of $70 to $80 million. This strong cash flow performance can be attributed to efficient inventory management. As a result, overall debt was reduced sequentially by $124 million, offering a testament to effective capital management.
The year 2023 witnessed a capital expenditure (CapEx) of roughly $78 million with investments focused on supporting growth in Mexico facilities and enhancing capabilities in the Precision Technologies division. Moving ahead, CapEx for Q1 2024 is projected to be between $10 million and $15 million, while the forecast for the full year 2024 is expected to lie within $55 million to $65 million. These investments underscore the company's commitment to continuous growth and operational excellence.
Looking toward the first quarter of 2024, the revenue is anticipated to be between $625 million and $665 million, with non-GAAP gross margins expected to range from 9.8% to 10.2%. The operating margin is also projected to be between 4.5% to 4.7%, inclusive of stock-based compensation accounting for approximately 50 basis points. Furthermore, the EPS is forecasted to be in the range of $0.42 to $0.48, while the non-GAAP effective tax rate is projected at 24%.
The company anticipates a steady performance going into 2024 without dramatic recovery in some legacy segments. Nonetheless, due to the introduction of new product innovation (NPI) activities and new tool wins, the company has the ability to outperform the market. These new introductions are expected to support growth even amid prevalent market and geopolitic challenges, such as China restrictions and the CHIPS Act, with the full benefits predicted to emerge in 2025.
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Good afternoon, and welcome to the Benchmark Electronics, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Pease note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Mansky, Investor Relations and Corporate Development of Benchmark. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Andrea, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today for Benchmark's Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Call.Joining me this afternoon are Jeffrey Benck, CEO and President; and Roop Lakkaraju, CFO. After the market closed today, we issued an earnings release pertaining to our financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2023, and we have prepared a presentation that we will reference on this call.Both are available online under the Investor Relations section of our website at bench.com. This call is being webcast live, and a replay will be available online following the call. The company has provided a reconciliation of our GAAP to non-GAAP measures in the earnings release as well as in the appendix to the presentation. Please take a moment to review the forward-looking statements disclosure on Slide 2 in the presentation.During our call, we will discuss forward-looking information. As a reminder, any of today's remarks which are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties as described in our press releases and SEC filings.Actual results may differ materially from these statements. Benchmark undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For today's call, Jeff will begin by providing a summary of our fourth quarter. Roop will then discuss our detailed financial results and our first-quarter guidance. Jeff will then return to provide more insight into demand trends by sector, business wins, and then closing remarks. If you will please turn to Slide 3, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Jeffrey Benck.
Thank you, Paul. Good afternoon, and thanks to everyone for joining our call today. The fourth quarter was another period of solid execution for the company. Despite some revenue softening, which impacted our top line, we met or exceeded all other objectives for the quarter. This directly reflects the company's focus on operational execution.Let me step through a few highlights in the quarter. Total revenue of $691 million was down high single digits year-over-year and mid-single-digit digits sequentially. I will point out that supply chain premiums or SCP, have normalized, ending the fourth quarter at slightly below $8 million versus $46 million in the same period last year. Excluding SCP, fourth-quarter revenue was down low single digits versus last year. Despite this challenge, our non-GAAP gross margin exceeded 10%, growing both sequentially and year-over-year. Coupled with a 9% year-on-year reduction in non-GAAP operating expense in the quarter, we drove operating margin to greater than 5%.As a reminder, this margin includes approximately 50 basis points of stock compensation. I want to congratulate the entire team for delivering such a strong set of results, which allowed us to report $0.58 in non-GAAP earnings per share, above the midpoint of our guidance. Finally, as we've highlighted over the last few quarters, we've implemented a number of actions to drive free cash flow. I'm pleased to report that we generated $126 million in Q4 and $97 million for the full year, well ahead of our objective of $70 million to $80 million. This was enabled in large part by a reduction in inventory.Considering all the end market obstacles facing us and others, I'm proud of the team's execution in the quarter and throughout 2023. Now, let me pass it over to Roop to share more details on the December quarter, our fiscal year 2023, and guidance for Q1 2024.
Thank you, Jeff, and good afternoon. Please turn to Slide 6 for our revenue by market sector. As Jeff mentioned, our total revenue was $691 million in Q4. The reconciliation of this and our sector-level performance that excludes the effect of SCP can be found in the appendix section of the presentation materials.Turning to Slide 7. As we look at our sector performance, our discussion will exclude the effect of SCP. Medical revenue for the fourth quarter was down 7% versus the prior year. The decline was due to general softness across the industry driven by inventory rebalancing and demand normalization post-pandemic.Semi-cap revenue decreased 5% year-over-year, in line with our expectations. K&D revenue was up 15% year-over-year due to commercial aerospace remaining strong and the defense sector benefiting from the ramp of existing programs and the broadening of new wins within our customer base. Industrial's revenue for the fourth quarter increased 8% year-over-year, driven by strength with existing customers, providing energy efficiency solutions. Advanced computing increased 3% year-over-year, aided by our build of subsystems for a new large high-performance computing program that started in Q4 and is expected to continue into first half 2024.In the next-generation communications sector, revenue was down 31% year-over-year. Our year-over-year performance was impacted by general softness across the sector due to reductions in capital spending. We expect this dynamic may persist throughout 2024. Please turn to Slide 8. Our GAAP earnings per share for the quarter was $0.49. For Q4, our non-GAAP gross margin was 10.3%, a 70 basis point increase sequentially and year-over-year. Gross margin benefited from our mix of revenue and improved operational execution, including the previously announced cost actions taken in the first half due to demand softness.SG&A expense was $35.6 million, flat sequentially and down 10% versus the prior year due to cost actions taken, coupled with lower variable compensation. Non-GAAP operating margin was 5.1%, up 40 basis points sequentially and 80 basis points year-over-year, benefiting from both improved gross margin and operating expense discipline.In Q4 2023, our non-GAAP effective tax rate was 20.6%. For Q4, non-GAAP EPS was $0.58, above the midpoint of our guidance. Non-GAAP ROIC in the fourth quarter was 9.3%. Please turn to Slide 9 for our revenue comparison by market sector for the full year 2023 versus 2022. Total Benchmark revenue for 2023 was $2.8 billion.Turning to Slide 10. Excluding the effect of SCP, revenue was up 6% year-over-year. Medical revenues increased 9% from growth with existing customers and new program ramps. Semi-cap revenues decreased 9%, in line with our expectations and reflecting better than market performance.The A&D sector increased by 6% due to continued strength in commercial aerospace, defense programs that continue to ramp, and improve supply availability, enabling us to address more of our previously unmet demand.Industrial revenues were up 17%, primarily from the continued ramp of our prior wins, notably in energy control systems and building infrastructure programs. Advanced computing was up 10% on the year given the timing of our next-generation high-performance computing program deliveries.NextGen Communications revenues were up 16%, given the first-half strength in broadband infrastructure programs. Please turn to Slide 11. Our GAAP earnings per share for fiscal year 2023 was $1.79. Our GAAP results included restructuring and other one-time costs totaling $9.3 million related to the completion of the Moore Park, California closure, the rightsizing of certain manufacturing sites, and a net gain of $4.6 million from legal settlements.Both GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin of 9.5% increased 70 basis points due to lower SCP. Without SCP, our gross margin was 9.8%. The gross margin expansion was driven by improved operational efficiencies and the proactive cost reduction actions taken by our manufacturing sites.Our SG&A was $137 million, down 2% year-over-year, driven by the cost actions taken, coupled with lower variable compensation. Non-GAAP operating margin was 4.4%, an increase of 80 basis points driven by the gross margin expansion.Non-GAAP effective tax rate was 20.1% for the year, and our non-GAAP EPS was $2.04. Please turn to Slide 12 for a discussion of the effects of SCP on a trended basis. In Q4, SCP declined to $8 million versus $16 million in Q3 2023 and $46 million in Q4 2022. On a year-over-year basis, SCP declined by $209 million to $59 million in 2023. Looking into 2024, we expect SCP to be immaterial.As such, beginning in Q1 2024, we will discontinue references to performance, excluding SCP. Please turn to Slide 13 for a discussion of our cash conversion cycle performance.Our cash conversion cycle days were 98% in the fourth quarter compared to 105 days in Q3. Our inventory decreased sequentially by $42 million. Cash conversion cycle improved by 7 days due to improved working capital efficiency and an increase in advanced payments from customers. Please turn to Slide 14 for an update on liquidity. Free cash flow generation is a critical focus area. To that end, in 2023, we reduced inventory and improved working capital efficiency. This supported full-year free cash flow generation of $97 million, which exceeded our annual goal of $70 million to $80 million per year.In 2024, we again expect to generate $70 million to $80 million. Our cash balance on December 31 was $283 million, a sequential increase of $22 million. As of December 31, we had $127 million outstanding on our term loan, turned 5 million outstanding borrowings against our revolver, and $341 million available to borrow under our revolver.Overall debt, net of cash, improved sequentially by $124 million because of the strong free cash flow in Q4 2023. Please turn to Slide 15 for a discussion of our capital allocation activity. We invested approximately $78 million in capital spending in 2023, including $11 million in Q4, both primarily in support of continued growth in our Mexico facilities and enhanced capabilities in our Precision Technologies business unit. We expect our CapEx spending in Q1 2024 to be between $10 million and $15 million.On a full-year basis, we anticipate 2024 CapEx to be in the range of $55 million to $65 million. In Q4, we paid cash dividends of $5.9 million and totaling $23 million for the full year 2023.Since 2018, we have paid cash dividends totaling $136 million. We did not repurchase any outstanding shares in 2023. As of December 31, we had approximately $155 million remaining in our existing share repurchase authorization. Starting in Q1, we expect to repurchase shares opportunistically while considering market conditions. Turning to Slide 16. For the first quarter 2024, we expect revenue to range from $625 million to $665 million. Our non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 9.8% and 10.2%. We expect SG&A expense will range between $34 million and $36 million.Our non-GAAP operating margin range is forecasted to be 4.5% to 4.7%. As a reminder, this includes approximately 50 basis points of stock-based compensation. Our non-GAAP guidance excludes the impact of $1.2 million in amortization of intangible assets and $3.1 million to $3.5 million of estimated restructuring and other expenses to support incremental steps necessary to proactively manage our cost structure given current market conditions. Our non-GAAP diluted earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $0.42 to $0.48. Other expenses net are expected to be approximately $8.5 million. Interest expense is expected to decline sequentially given the reduction in revolver debt. However, over the near term, this will be partially offset by increased foreign exchange headwinds due to the weakening U.S. dollar.We have historically managed our exchange risk through a proactive hedge program, and we will continue to do so. We expect them in Q1, our non-GAAP effective tax rate will be 24%, the weighted average share count of $36 million.Our effective tax rate will be higher in '24 because of our China tax holiday, which expired as of December 31, 2023. We are applying for another tax holiday, which we hope to receive in 2024, retroactive to the beginning of 2024. Also in 2024, some of our foreign jurisdictions will be adopting Pillar 2, the global minimum tax regulations on a fiscal-year basis. We believe the average 2024 effective tax rate should be approximately 23%. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to you, Jeff.
Thanks, Roop. Please turn to Slide 18. Again, all commentary related to demand trends by sector are excluding SCP. Within semi-cap, our fourth quarter performance was up modestly sequentially and in line with our expectations. On a full-year basis, revenue performance was down high single digits. This compared favorably to the overall industry revenue trend, which we believe was down approximately 20%. As mentioned in prior calls, we believe our semi-cap sector likely bottomed in the March quarter of 2023. However, based on public commentary from many semi-cap OEMs, we don't expect improved demand at the industry level to return over the next few quarters. This may change in late 2024, but it's too early to make that call.Looking forward into 2025 and beyond, we continue to believe in the strong secular drivers propelling global semi-demand. Adding to this, our government subsidies are designed to accelerate the reshoring of wafer production to North America and Europe. Although we won't see the downstream effects for some time, this is just another example of the long-term drivers that serve as the basis of our strong commitment to the sector.In support of all these demand drivers and our confidence in our ability to benefit, we have been investing heavily in our capabilities and winning new programs, which we believe positions us well to continue to outperform the market. We had a number of new wins in the quarter, including an important next-generation wafer fab equipment program with one of our existing customers. In Medical, this past quarter, we did a good job of meeting demand as the supply chain continues to improve. Offsetting this was some incremental demand softening later in the quarter, both as a function of end markets and customer focus on inventory levels.As such, while we had expected performance to be down in the quarter, it was down more than anticipated. For the full year, Medical delivered high single-digit growth, driven by our ramping program wins and our improved ability to meet demand. Despite this success, we expect the demand environment will challenge our ability to deliver growth in this sector in the first half of 2024. Looking forward, our new win momentum, driven in part by the continued trend toward near-shoring bodes well for our future growth. We continue to secure new wins during this past quarter.Importantly, not only are we seeing new program wins with existing EMS customers, we continue to benefit from the advantage of our end-to-end offerings, converting engineering engagements into EMS wins. As these wins begin ramping later in 2024 and into 2025, we expect to see growth return to this sector. Turning to complex Industrials. We continue to extend our footprint in key growth markets, including electrification, automation, and energy management solutions. One example in Q4 is a program win to manufacture control subsystems going into electric vehicles used primarily in the construction industry.Another key win was for an automated guided vehicle system specifically designed to address the needs in hospitality and medical sectors. This win, again, demonstrates the benefit of our broad capabilities as we transition the design engagement into a manufacturing win. Within Energy Management, we are pleased to win new manufacturing business in Guadalajara with an existing customer, which is part of their near-shoring strategy. Industrial sector revenue performed slightly better than expected in the fourth quarter, up 8% year-on-year versus our flat guidance. However, as with medical, the quarter saw some second-half softening due to weakening end demand.The near-term corrections notwithstanding, we are continuing to invest in our industrial sector team given the large opportunity in front of us and how well we are positioned to grow with this customer set. Now turning to A&D. We had another strong quarter of revenue performance and new wins in Q4, continuing our momentum in the sector. Commercial Aerospace has remained strong for us since early in 2023, which we believe will continue based on our order load.Meanwhile, within defense, although some component lead times are not yet back to historical levels, they continue to improve. This has allowed us to more fully meet the continuing increase in demand we're seeing from our customers.At the same time, we continued to secure new wins in the past quarter, notably one for ground vehicle communications and another for imaging systems used at military training sites. This balance of end demand strength design win momentum and gradually improving supply chain has us positioned for continued growth in 2024. Within Advanced Computing, revenues were consistent with the guidance provided last quarter, up low single digits year-on-year, albeit up considerably on a sequential basis. As previously shared, after a pause in Q3, last quarter, we began delivering upon a new HPC program for a large OEM supporting a national lab, which will likely be completed in the first half of 2024.We are working the HPC opportunities to drive future growth. But given the timing of these projects, coupled with our growth in the first half last year, we currently expect advanced computing revenue to be down for the first half of 2024.Finally, in next-generation communications, we've been highlighting anticipated challenges at the industry level for a few quarters now. The communications sector is seeing broad pressure in capital spending, while at the same time, more aggressively managing through their own inventory positions.This has resulted in continued end demand weakening, which we believe will persist for several more quarters. As such, we expect sector revenue to be down materially in the first half and likely for the full year. In summary, please turn to Slide 19. I couldn't be more pleased by our performance in 2023. Despite the challenging market dynamics, we continue to invest in future growth, building on our business with both new logos and expansion wins from existing customers.We did this while growing non-GAAP gross and operating margins year-on-year. Despite our pace of investment, particularly in support of semi-cap, we exceeded our free cash flow target range for the year. This was aided by a material reduction in total inventory.Meanwhile, as compared to 2022, we reduced net debt by almost 60% to less than $48 million. We continue to make progress, but we are not complacent with our success. There is much more for us to do. We made great headway in 2023 towards our target model of full-year gross margins of 10% and greater than 5% non-GAAP operating margin. In fact, we achieved these levels in the fourth quarter. Our job now is to sustain this gross margin while closely managing our costs during the softening demand environment. Second, we will continue our efforts on inventory reductions in support of delivering free cash flow.And then finally, we plan to further reduce our debt and interest expense while returning capital by continuing our dividend program and resuming share repurchases. We look forward to updating you on our progress as we move through the year. With that, I'll now turn the call over to the operator to conduct our Q&A session.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from James Ricchiuti of Needham & Co.
Jeff, I wanted to just focus on 2 of the sectors, medical and industrial, because I think you're kind of clear on some of the other ones, what you're seeing, not entirely clear on where you see medical and industrial is going. Softened, I guess. Midway or so through Q4, do you see that recovering? Or is this something that maybe persists through the first half of the year?
Yes. I think for both of those, on Chart 18, we kind of give you some first half guidance. We didn't go out to the full year, just given the dynamic environment. But just looking at the first half, we see both of those being down from looking at sequentially where we ended the second half of last year.In medical, while supply constraints eased and allowed us to fulfill the demand we saw, we did see the forecast come down in the fourth quarter. That continued in 1Q. We certainly believe people are paying a lot of attention to inventory, some of it is probably related to that softness. I will say there's still a lot of outsourcing activity and nearshoring continues. We're excited about a number of new wins in Mexico for us as medical OEMs look to get closer to the point of consumption. On the industrial side, again, I would say it depends a little bit by OEM, but certainly saw broader softness that looks to persist into the first half. That's an area where we had done pretty good with wins. We had put a resource on that a few years ago. And we still believe we're really well positioned there with some of the activity we're seeing in energy management and automation and test and measurement.But in the meantime, again, sort of the softness coupled with people looking at their own inventory and the channel inventory is putting some headwinds in front of us for the industrial sector too.
But the softness through the first half in these areas is both a combination, you're both related, but it's not just OEMs, some of your OEMs destocking. There's just a weaker environment in both these areas.
Yes. I think that's a fair assessment. As demand softens, then you say, hey, we've got inventory in the channel. So, they're kind of interrelated, although I will say there's just a general sense of I'm not going to carry as much inventory now that we're through the pandemic.The lead times have come down on components, I can deliver faster. So I'm going to look carefully at that. But, yes, that's something that we're seeing in both sectors.
Just a few quick follow-ups, and I'll jump back in the queue. Nice progress on gross margins. Can you continue to deliver on these kind of gross margins in this kind of a soft environment that you alluded to it in your presentation, just trying to get a sense of your confidence as to whether you can maintain these kinds of margins with this?
Hey, Jim, it's Roop. So, maybe I'll start with this. I think for us, obviously, a focus for us has been on getting to that 10% and sustaining that 10%.As we've also said historically, we'll see kind of that bounce around a little bit quarter-to-quarter. But based on kind of where we're at and kind of the mix of revenue, the proactive cost actions we've taken, that kind of 10% is where we'd like to be throughout the year.I think depending upon how demand continues to profile and as you know, where the demand comes in within our factories and these sort of things start to come into play. So, I think there's an opportunity to do so definitely at that 10%, we've got work to do to sustain that on a longer-term basis.
Nice progress on inventories. How do we think about that going forward? Should that continue to come down over the next couple of quarters?
Yes. I mean, it's clear there. This is Jeff again. It's clearly a priority for us. We've kind of demonstrated that. A lot of things culminated in fourth quarter to drive a lot of free cash flow and inventory was certainly really a lead there. But it's something we're putting a lot of attention on, as you can imagine. And particularly in the softer environment, we're really looking at that and spending a lot of energy.We do believe we'll continue to drive this down as we go through '24 and then certainly see a reduction even in the first quarter. So, this wasn't like a one-time event. But the last few quarters, we started coming down off of what was the peak in, I think, the first quarter of last year. So, anyways, yes, to your point, it's important.
The next question comes from Steven Fox of Fox Advisors.
A couple of questions from me. Just first on the semi-cap on Slide 18 where you're talking about sort of flattish trends. You guys outperformed the last year pretty dramatically versus the overall market. But are you still seeing the market down? Or are you trying to be conservative in terms of talking about the first half? Or is there certain programs where you're seeing down versus up, et cetera? I get it just doesn't seem to compute fully with how the market might be flattening out and you guys have been outperforming.
What I would say is, sequentially, I think on Slide 18, we kind of said it's kind of flattish at that level we've been at, which is clearly up off the bottom that we saw a year ago in the first quarter. But we're just not seeing a dramatic recovery in some of the segments that were legacy that we've been really strong in, certainly not tools that were near end of life. So, the wafer fab equipment, I think capital spending is still being managed pretty close. And we just haven't seen that broad semi-recovery. I think where we've outperformed. What's helped us is we've won incremental new tools. We have a ton of NPI activity going on where we're building new tools, and that's helping us certainly outperform. And I look to get more constructive here. I won't say that we're being conservative because we literally have heard a lot of the major OEMs where we play in most of those, if not all of those.At some level, they've all kind of said, yes, it's kind of flatter now. I think we have a potential. I don't know why we wouldn't continue to do better than the market. It's just that with the China restrictions and even some of the CHIPS Act, we're really not going to see the benefit of that until '25. There are just moving parts that has us sort of looking at it saying, what do we see in front of us for first half, and it's kind of continuing at the level we've been.
And then just broadly on the other end markets where you're seeing pressure, where do you have sort of the most confidence level or evidence that things could be bottoming out cyclically in like medical industrials comps? I know advanced computing is sort of episodic. But like in the other where you have strong signs of that or upcoming signs.
I mean, we try to -- I guess we've got some indication on medical that there may be some, again, it's early, but say, hey, there may be return to normal pace with inventory looking at second half like we might see some reflection there where maybe there's like -- and we saw it in semi, where the first quarter was like we're taking it down and you have that big reaction.So, maybe we start seeing that in the fourth quarter with medical. Industrial, I still think it's so broad, so many different companies. It's a little harder to look at where the bottom is. And then A&D has been strong and continues strong. And I guess we said that in the thing. I know you didn't ask about that, but certainly, that's been a bright spot, and we expect that to continue. Do you want to add anything?
Yes. Steve, this is Roop. I'll just add one thing. I think maybe building off of Jeff's comments, if you think about industrial Nextgen Comms., that's CapEx related. And CapEx considerations, I think, are weighing on customers' minds and just market in general. I think medical has an opportunity to that point for that reason to come back a little bit faster as Jeff indicated, which is another point to just keep in mind.
Yes. And one thing with medical, just maybe an example, we build the fibrillators, and components of the subsystem for defibrillator. And you think about like during a pandemic, no one is going to stadiums, airports, and that's where we saw a huge surge back when things opened up, you start seeing demand there and then people got on the run rate, and they said, "Wow, this is great, and this is the new normal."And I just think you've seen that modulate a little bit as you kind of caught up with that and people saying, okay, still care for it, it's still important, not going to go away, but just not maybe as crazy upside as there had been.
And then just if I could squeeze one last one in. One of your peers seems to be walking towards providing EPS excluding SBC. And so, I mean, you guys may get only with your own EPF approach. I was curious if any chance of you guys changing how you report your EPS.
Yes. We did notice that the only peer that was kind of aligned with us including the stock-based comp in their non-GAAP results. Sort of indicated there was a shift there. So, to that end, we got to assess our current approach, and we'll provide an update when we conclude that. And we'll look to get back on that. But obviously, peer comparisons are important to us, but we've got to decide what's right for us and we did pick up on that. So, thanks for bringing that up.
The next question comes from Jaeson Schmidt of Lake Street.
I know it's going to vary by segment, but just curious at a high level, if more of the issue is demand for current programs that you've already won, you noted for customers not wanting to hold a lot of inventory anymore? Or is the bigger issue new programs that you thought would currently be ramping, just getting pushed to the right?
I think it's some of both. I mean, people are watching expense closely, and I think we've seen some rents moved to the right. But really, when you consider the bulk of our revenues with existing programs and these are multiyear programs. I think we've just seen that overall demand modulate and I don't know that we've actually measured both. I'm just giving you a little gut feel from what we're seeing that I would probably lean more towards the base business.And then some of the new stuff coming in is some of that's in flight, but not fully ramped yet. And it's not always the best environment to launch new stuff, but I don't think that stops. I just think that we're seeing that folks are being careful about their development expense, and so, that has an impact sometimes on timelines.
And then are you seeing any change in attach rates for your design and engineering services, just given the changing macro?
We're almost at 80%, not quite to what the target we had set. So, that attach rate has been pretty good. I'm pretty happy with that.Obviously, we had a couple of wins we referenced even one where we've done the engineering on an AGV product and now it's moving into manufacturing. So, we love that, the whole product realization, and how do we help customers get to market faster with their OEM designs or design that we might help develop or develop the whole thing, and we've got a couple of great proof points there.So, still an important metric for us and really hasn't shifted materially from how we did last quarter. And I don't really see that being a trend or anything.
And then just the last one from me. I know it's mix dependent to your program dependent, but can you remind us what capacity is for the Mexico facility and then what the current utilization is today?
Hey, Jaeson, I can give you a general, we don't give specific utilization and these sort of things. With that said, what I would reinforce is our continued investment in Mexico, as you would imagine, there's been quite a bit of reshoring and with existing OEMs who want to expand new programs in Mexico. And so, we've seen the benefit of that.So, we've been aggressively investing over the last couple of years in our capacity and availability there, and we're seeing that capacity get used up as we've gone over the last few periods and into '24 and into '25. Yes, it's funny. We've seen growth in Mexico, but we've continued to add capacity and it's been in investment areas. So, it's not like we're seeing the fact that we've invested as a lot is to stay in front of that. So, we're not like at capacity by any means.
This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Paul Mansky, for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Andrea, and thank you, everyone, for participating in Benchmark's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. Before we go, I'd like to remind listeners, we will be attending the Sidoti Small Cap Virtual Conference on March 13.Please remember the Check Events section of the IR website at bench.com/investors for updates to the schedule. With that, thank you again for your support, and we look forward to speaking with you soon.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.