Nordic Semiconductor ASA

OSE:NOD

Earnings Call Analysis

Nordic's Revenue and Margins Decline, Aiming Above 50% GM

In Q3 2023, Nordic's revenue fell 33% year-over-year to $135 million, continuing a downward trend with a 26% drop over nine months to $435 million. Bluetooth product demand significantly weakened, propelling a 33% revenue decline to nearly $120 million. Despite overall revenue contraction, the lack of supply chain constraints has eased, and no supply issues are expected in the current demand-supply dynamics. Gross profit dropped to $68.2 million from $115.7 million, with margins declining to 50.5% due to a concentrated customer base with higher volumes but lower average margins. Guidance for Q4 suggests a continued revenue drop and flat margins around 50%.

Revenue Down Amidst Industry Downturn

In the world of electronics, Nordic—a company with diverse technological products—navigated through a tough Q3 in 2023. Their financial story unfolded as total revenue plummeted 33% to $135 million compared to last year's $202 million in the same period. Over the nine months of 2023, they faced a decline of 26%, signaling a deeper issue than just seasonal fluctuations. This downward trend swept across their product category, with the strongest hit observed in Bluetooth revenue which retracted by 33% year-over-year.

Product Segment Performance Varies

Within their product lineup, discrepancies were notable. While proprietary revenue saw a 20% year-over-year decrease indicating a slump in PC accessories demand, it made a surprising 60% quarterly leap due to seasonality. Cellular IoT painted a contrasting picture, dipping a significant 51% compared to last year but jumping 63% from the previous quarter. New tech ventures like PMIC and Wi-Fi are on the horizon, but as for now, they remain just a glimmer of future potential in the company's revenue mix.

Consumer Demand Slows; Healthcare Grows

Consumer markets, feeling the pinch of tightened consumer electronics spending and inventory adjustments by manufacturers, saw a substantial 36% annual drop. The bright spot in this dim outlook was the healthcare market, which despite a quarterly decline, ballooned in revenue by 84% year-over-year thanks to a strong Q2 performance.

Weakening Profit Margins

Profitability has also taken a hit; gross profit fell to $68.2 million from the previous year's $115.7 million. The pressure has been building with gross margins narrowing to 50.5% from a healthier 57% last year. This reduction in profitability has been attributed to a more concentrated customer base demanding high volumes but at lower margins, coupled with a shift in the product mix. Furthermore, they project gross margins to hover around the 50% mark for the remainder of the year.

R&D and Cost Management

In these lean times, the company managed to reduce total R&D expenses while increasing its relative investment in revenue terms. Noteworthy were new product developments and continued R&D focus, despite an overall decrease in R&D spending from $38.2 million to $36.7 million. They also took decisive steps in cost management by stiffening the salary increases and curbing variable pay, all while increasing headcount by 11%. These personnel investments are suggestive of their commitment to future growth and product innovation.

Capital Expenditure and Cash Flow

The company's capital expenditure stood below $2 million, indicating a strategic delay in investments to later quarters. They ended Q3 with a decreased cash balance of $229 million after an outflow of $80 million. Nordic's strategy to bulk up inventory by $10 million points to their preparedness for potential growth opportunities once the market recuperates. Investors might also find some solace in the undrawn credit facility of $150 million, providing a cushion for future investments and operations.

Outlook and Strategy Amidst Market Challenges

Looking ahead, Nordic's executives painted a realistic yet challenging picture. They expect the revenue slide to persist into Q4, with gross margins plateauing around the 50% mark. Their vision for recovery involves strategic cost reductions and channeling R&D towards prospects with immediate revenue and profit potentials. It’s a challenging environment, as the management braces for a 'silent' cyclical downturn with limited visibility but clear action plans to navigate through the storm.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the Nordic Semiconductor's Q3 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Stale. Please begin.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

And good morning, everyone. We are recording this presentation, and it will be available on our Nordic website under the IR section. On the IR web page, you will also find our earnings press release, quarterly report and the presentation.

And joining me today, we have the CEO, Svenn-Tore Larsen; and CFO, Pal Elstad. They will be talking about the latest financial results as well as review recent business activities. After the presentation, we will open for Q&A, both as call-in and written question via the webcast. We will start with the call-in questions and end up with questions from the webcast.

As usual, the presentation contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. We encourage you to review our full Q3 quarterly report and annual report for 2022 for more information on risks and uncertainties that may affect our business.

With that, I hand over to our CEO, Svenn-Tore Larsen.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Good morning. My name is Svenn-Tore Larsen. And today, I have my CFO, Pal Elstad, with me.

As you know from our trading update in September, we see a decline in a challenging market. Overall, revenue for the third quarter came in at $135 million, and with Bluetooth, $120 million, both down by 1/3 from the same period last year. Gross margin came in at 50% and EBITDA margin at 10% for the quarter.

Looking ahead, the visibility remains low, but we guide for revenue decline further, unfortunately. And we expect to land in the region of $110 million to $130 million in Q4. And we maintain our gross margin around 50%.

As you understand, we are currently working to manage a cyclical downturn that is both sharper and has lasted longer than both we and the industry players have anticipated. We are now lowering our forecast during the year, and we are currently operating at a significant lower revenue levels than we expected when we went into 2023.

Even though we have made cost -- I've been very cost conscious, we need to adapt to this new market. And this means that we need to take further action to lower the cost base and reallocate resources. This means that we will spend less than I would ideally like to spend on future opportunities, giving the huge long-term potential of our technology.

And on that note, I want to be very clear that we will continue to protect our unique position and the unique platform we have with solution covering both short-range, medium-range and long-range connectivity. We will be moving forward with the main R&D programs on all three areas, but we will seek to reallocate resources from longer-term projects to projects that will generate revenue and profits in the near to medium term.

We are focused more on the first and the second wave of innovation, and we will do more D and less R. The cost measures will include use of less use of consultants, and we will also carry out a detailed run-through of all projects to [ assess ] the total level of resources required. These cost measures will have effect from 2024 and will reduce quarterly operating expenses in the order of $5 million. It's hard to do, but it's the only way to adapt to the situation where Nordic is fighting against the market.

Taking one step back to look at revenue development. This graph shows that different customer groups are developing very differently. Measuring on a 12-month basis, revenue from our top 10 Bluetooth customers have grown so far this year.

As we talked about earlier, we have put a lot of resources into developing strong, very strong relationships, lasting relationships with these customers. This picture shows that the strategy has been successful, and we are glad to see that we are being included in more and more designs with these customers.

On a negative side, we have seen a sharp contraction in the revenue from other Bluetooth customers from what we usually call the broad market or the long tail. As a result, we've seen increasing customer concentration with the top 10 now accounting for more than 50% of our Bluetooth revenue. If you look at the third quarter isolated, it was more than 60%.

We hope and expect to see the broad market recovering over time, and we still believe our market position in the broad market will remain intact. This is confirmed actually by the steady and high market share within Bluetooth Low Energy product certifications. Nordics still are at 42% market share for both the quarter and the last 12 months. Actually, we are more than 5x as large as #2 and #3 in this market.

Every quarter, we look at some new launches. We see a lot of different products across very different types of application. I think the most exciting development is to see that increased number of products combining short range and long range. And we here show some environmental monitoring solution and a mobile gateway, basically contain short range, long range. And that's the picture we're going to see, going forward.

If you look at cellular IoT on the financial side, [ we're ] not where we want to be. We are used to revenue fluctuation between quarters, and we have seen a decline from last year but -- when we look at our revenue on 12 months rolling basis. But we also know that we [ have been in more designs ] than we've ever done. And the same weak economy are obviously affecting demand also in the area. And we've seen, unfortunately, a lot of projects being pushed out in time.

In terms of innovation, and that's basically the DNA of Nordic, and result of our R&D program, we have recently announced a new series of the 54 family. This is the 54L Series. The high -- the successful 52 Series were introduced 8 years ago and since become the world's most-sold Bluetooth Low Energy devices. The [ 54L ] Series is taking these type of devices to the next level and will be a natural step for a customer that's using the 52 family today.

During the support shortage and given the current geopolitical landscape, we see more and more customers caring about supply diversification. For Nordic, it made a whole lot of sense to be part of enhancing the supply chain diversification and work with TSMC and [indiscernible] 22ULL technology together with GlobalFoundries on the 22FDX. We are very excited about the 24 -- 54L15. And we are currently sampling lead customers and expect to see initial revenue towards the end of '24.

Common for both [ 24H ] Series and the L Series is the focus on innovation. The [ IT ] application of today are more demanding than the ones yesterday. So providing more processing power at lower power consumption improve the integrated security and continues to improve the radio and obviously, connectivity, are natural points when Nordic bring innovation.

We did select the 22-nanometer node for these products as it is best technology today for mixed single [ size ] and will be the leading IoT technology node for the next decade. As always, our products are [ multi-protocol ] to cater a wide range of applications.

The high end, the 54H was the first chip we announced in 54 Series back in April. We have so far been sampling 50 lead customers, and the feedback has been good. Our target is to have sample more than 100 customers by end of this year, and we are on track to realize initial revenue towards end of next year.

Recently, we also record -- reported record-breaking performance, both absolute compute power for our processors as well as we are leading on energy efficiency. This has previously been compromised, where one had to choose one or the other. With the 54H, you get the best of both worlds. This was validated by external benchmark and is a testament to our relentless focus on low power.

With the two products in 54 family, we will cover a wide range of IoT products with world-leading products. This system of the chips has everything required to make [ ultra low power ], secure innovative product for years to come.

Turning to another matter, nordic is now investing in open-source, customized processor architecture together with industry leaders, such as NXP, Qualcomm, Bosch and Infineon. We are establishing a new company aiming to accelerate and adopt RISC-V and building a strong ecosystem around it. We look forward to share more about this when the company is up running.

I'm rounding off with an exciting acquisition of the AI/ML learning technology and team from Atlazo in San Diego. This type of technology will be core to IoT, going forward, especially when it comes to making edge devices smarter. And making this technology available on our future SoCs will be a key differentiator for us, going forward, as we believe it's important to build a strong in-house IP position in this area to remain in front and continue strengthening value proposition to our customer.

Transaction is -- depends on regulatory approval, and we expect to see a completion end of '23. And I will expect to see benefits for our revenue 12-18 months from the closing.

I think with that, I'll leave it to Pal, and he will take you through the financials.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

Thank you, Svenn-Tore. My name is Pal. I'm the CFO in Nordic. I'll now go to the financials for Q3 2023. .

Nordic reported total revenue of $135 million in the quarter, which was a decrease of 33% from $202 million in Q3 2022. Total revenue was 12% lower than the previous quarter. For the first 9 months of '23, total revenue decreased by 26% from $585 million to $435 million this year. The company continues to see changes in the revenue composition with significantly diverging developments across different product technologies, customers and end-user verticals and geographies.

Bluetooth revenue amounted to $119.8 million in Q3, a decrease of 33% year-over-year and down 16% compared to previous quarter. The main reason for the decline is weaker demand, especially in the broad market, as well as the continued inventory adjustments.

Proprietary revenue amounted to $10.3 million in Q3, which was decreased 20% year-over-year, but up 60% from the previous quarter due to seasonally stronger demand. The decline mainly reflects continued weak demand for PC accessories and other home/office equipment.

Cellular IoT revenue amounted to $4.2 million in Q3, which was a decreased 51% year-over-year but up 63% from the previous quarter. The reduction compared to last year reflects a strong Q3 in '22, where we, at the back end of some delivery issues we had in the first half of 2022, had a very strong quarter in '22. Compared to last quarter, the increase reflects higher demand from some of the key customers within this technologies.

For new technologies like PMIC and Wi-Fi, we're seeing increased [ design-ins ], and we'll start reporting details when we have meaningful revenue in these technologies.

When comparing reported numbers to last year, revenue per vertical was largely driven by allocations of finished goods to customers in its specific market. The pressure on the supply chain has eased this year. Nordic no longer sees any supply constraints, given the current demand and supply outlook.

In terms of verticals, with overall decline in revenues, [ both ] verticals are also, of course, down. The Consumer markets saw revenues decline by 36% year-over-year, reflecting both lower consumer spending on electronics as well as inventory adjustments among equipment manufacturers. However, compared to last quarter, Consumer is mainly flat, driven by stronger proprietary revenue than last quarter. Consumer Electronics is now 60% of total revenues, up from 55% last quarter.

Revenue in the Industrial segment declined by 54% year-over-year and 21% from the previous quarter, reflecting temporarily lower deliveries to some of the major industrial customers. Nordic has long highlighted the Healthcare market as a future growth engine. And amongst others, Q2 this year was very strong, generating high revenue to a few customers. Although revenue actually declined from the previous quarter by 23%, it is actually up 84% year-over-year.

Gross profits was $68.2 million in Q3, down from $115.7 million a year ago, with the gross margin decreasing to 50.5% from 57% same quarter last year. The decline in gross margin reflects increased concentration in the customer base, as Svenn-Tore mentioned in detail, with some of the major Tier 1 customers maintaining very high volumes, while broad market customers sees weak demand.

As earlier indicated, this affects gross margins negatively as higher-volume customers, on average, carry lower gross margins. In addition, we see a continuing effect of changes in the product mix during the quarter. We do expect gross margins to be around 50% also for Q4 2023, and we also reiterate our long-term ambition to maintain gross margins above 50%.

As communicated earlier, our operating model is very sensitive to revenue. Last year, we saw EBITDA margins above 25%, driven by high revenue growth and very strong gross margins. A combination of lower revenue and gross margin shows how sensitive the model is. And in Q3, we reported an EBITDA margin of 9.5%.

However, during a difficult period, we have come up with several new products, including the all-new nRF54 Series. We are continuing to develop on Wi-Fi, PMIC and also cellular IoT. As such, we're in a much stronger situation compared to a year ago, product-wise.

Total R&D is down $38.2 million -- is down from $38.2 million a year ago to $36.7 million this year. But from -- compared to revenue, it's up from 19.9% to 23%. The reduction in the underlying spending is mainly driven by higher capitalization. In Q3 '23, we capitalized around $6 million, while the same number in '22 was $2 million.

The reason for this increase is that we, in '23, have several products in the last phase before capitalization. And that is the trigger for -- sorry, the last phase before commercialization, which is the trigger for capitalizing the spending, the investments. SG&A, up from $18 million -- up to $18.5 million from $17.4 million a year ago.

Total cash operating expenses amounted to $58 million in Q3 when adding back capitalized development expenses and deducting depreciation and equity-based compensation. This compares to $55 million in Q3 '22 and $58 million or the same number last quarter.

USD 38 million relates to payroll expenses, which is flat compared to last year. This is despite the number of employees are up 11% year-over-year to 1,530 employees. The reason that salaries are flat despite increased number of employees is that we have significantly reduced the variable pay elements in 2023.

Yes, we commented last quarter that we adjusted the cost base by growing less than OpEx less than previously, where despite headcount, growth able to mitigate the effects of inflation. The reason for the 11% growth in employees is that we added significantly in the second half of '22, really impacting the comparables year-over-year. If you compare it to last quarter, number of employees are more or less stable. Svenn-Tore will elaborate more on additional measures to manage the cost base.

CapEx was below $2 million in Q3. The reason for this low number is that we've postponed some investments to Q4. And we are also -- in addition to OpEx spending, we are maintaining focus on CapEx spending. CapEx intensity, overall, remains below the previously indicated levels of 3.3% of revenue on a yearly basis.

During Q3, we decreased our cash balance by $23 million and ended at $229 million at the end of September. Operating cash flow -- outflow, [ $80 million ], adjusted for capitalized items, mainly driven by profits in the period.

Net working capital in percent of revenue increased to 37%. The reason this comparable increases is, of course, that we are increasing working capital and we have lower revenue. Increase in working capital comes as a result of higher inventory, which increased by around $10 million in the quarter.

Nordic no longer sees any supply constraints, as I mentioned, but -- given the current demand and supply outlook. However, Nordic has made a strategic decision to increase inventory to support future growth ambitions and take advantage of the current supply situation. In addition to the cash on the balance sheet, we have an undrawn credit facility of $150 million.

Svenn-Tore, I'll now hand over to you to do the final comments on the Q4 outlook.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Thank you, Pal. Before opening for questions, I would just like to repeat our guidance for the fourth quarter.

We operate in a market that remains in a [ silent ] cyclical downturn, and we expect the revenue decline to continue from Q3 to Q4 with a relatively flat gross margin, around 50%. We continue to have relatively limited visibility beyond the current quarter and are, as I said earlier, taking action to reduce costs further and to reallocate R&D resources to projects that will generate revenue and profits in the long -- in the short to medium term.

So thank you all for listening in this morning. And we'll hand over to Stale to start Q&A. Pal, can you join me?

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you, Larsen. We will soon open up for Q&A. To accommodate as many as possible before the market opens, I recommend that everyone only ask one question with one following-up question. We will first start with the call-ins and then do questions that have been asked via our webcast page. I hand it over to [ Rasmus ] to open up for Q&A.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now start the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] And the first question will be from the line of Harry Blaiklock from UBS.

[Harry Blaiklock, analyst]

I was wondering, do you have any indication from your various customers, so Tier 1 smaller customers, distributors, how the level of inventory is looking in the channel? So is it at a healthy level now, given the level of digestion you're seeing? And if not, when do you expect inventories to reach healthy level?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

I think if you look at our distributor inventory levels, they are stable from last quarter. But in general, distributors have a very high overall inventory level. That's the comment we can give.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

Yes. And in the entire value chain, it's really mixed [ signals ], some report high and some are more stabilized. So it's difficult to give a general comment on it.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

We see pockets that are bright, but most of the situation is not bright.

[Harry Blaiklock, analyst]

Got it. And then one question, just I was wondering whether you could provide a bit -- kind of a bit more color around the comments on investing in products that will generate revenues and profits, short to midterm. In the release, you kind of mentioned Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular. And then Pal, you mentioned PMIC earlier, which seems to cover the whole portfolio. So I was wondering where exactly you'll be shifting investment from.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

The importance here is about time to market. So we are going to accelerate the time to market on products, really run flat out on certain products that we pick out to sort of ensure that we are getting to the market as fast as possible.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

But it's really within Bluetooth products. It is not comparing Bluetooth to another technology. It's parts of the Bluetooth and customers and portfolio within Bluetooth, for example, and the same with cellular.

[Operator]

The next question will be from the line of Sebastien from Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Sébastien Sztabowicz, analyst]

On the OpEx side, could you please help us model the OpEx for Q4? What kind of OpEx would you model in Q4? And also moving into 2024, you have your $5 million OpEx savings targeted. What is timing to reach this kind of $5 million quarterly savings run rate?

And also, we are seeing Matter being gradually adopted in some, I would say, flagship devices like the iPhone 15. Do you see any specific opportunity building up during 2024? Or it is more story for '25 onwards?

[Pål Elstad, executive]

Okay. Yes. So it was first the question on the $5 million target to -- in order of $5 million in cuts per quarter. So first of all, we communicate a $5 million cash spending. And if you look at our P&L, it's really -- a lot also impacted by capitalization. So it's important to look at the cash part and also, of course, equity compensation.

We have communicated earlier this year that Q1 is really the baseline for cash costs. And since Q1, we're more or less the same number of employees as we are today. And then if you look at the cash cost slide in Q1, the number is around $65 million. So I'd say that, that is the base.

From Q1, the current number of employees is, of course, yes, I said, flat. When you look at Q2, Q3, also remember that we have a positive impact of vacation pay and reduced bonus accruals. These two items are not in Q1. So I'd ask you to use Q1 as the base for cash operating expenses.

Then Svenn-Tore, there was a question on Matter...

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

If your question was matter, and we are going to see revenue on Matter picking up from next year.

[Operator]

And the next question will be from the line of Christoffer from DNB.

[Christoffer Bjørnsen, analyst]

Christoffer Bjørnsen from DNB Markets here. So it seems to me in the numbers you shared that this was kind of the first quarter, where also there was downturn in revenues year-over-year for your Tier 1 top 10 customers as well.

So that kind of leads to me to ask, is this basically only the beginning of the downturn, given the down cycle, given that you're now finally seeing that tailwind from the Tier 1s starting to go away? Or -- just trying to understand maybe not the numbers but the timing of the trough, are you already seeing any improvement into the first half? Or do we have to wait until second half next year before we see inventory corrections being completed, given that we're not [ yet seeing ] in the Tier 1 until now?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Back when top 10 was around 30%, we said we are working on potential high-volume project with some world-leading platforms and companies. This had driven volume through the pandemic, and we are very happy that we had those customers in our portfolio. It will continue to drive volumes even in this market. We have prioritized this customer when wafer supply was limited, and we see this paying off.

We are back to levels seen before 2015. However, compared to this, Nordic is at different scale and different size. The variation of this customer is large. And broad market customers are on average taking lower volume than forecasted due to lower end-user demand and depletion of inventory.

I would say, Nordic retains a strong position also in the broad market, with a broad portfolio of products and solution catering to both high-end and cost concern applications. So I can't guide ahead of Q4, but we will come back to the first half in Q1 for '24 when we do reporting in Q4 '23.

[Christoffer Bjørnsen, analyst]

And then my second follow-up is on the long-term growth trajectory. You now kind of calculate your growth through the cycle comparing [ Q3 ] quarters prior to the boom to inspect we're down to [ 15% ] growth through the cycle. Is this kind of the new normal level that we should expect, going forward? Are you more firm on expecting you guys to grow [ 20% ] plus what we get through the cycle downturn?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

As I said, we will not provide any comment on '24. But we see clear growth opportunities and remain confident in our long-term potential, both of the products and the market. But we don't know when it comes back. That's challenging for us to discuss, Christoffer. But we are continuing to win designs. We're winning important designs. And what sort of percentage rate did we grow, going forward, is very much depending on when market picks up.

[Operator]

The next question will be from the line of [indiscernible] from Jefferies.

[Unknown Analyst]

I just had one on pricing in both directions. So the -- I guess looking at your suppliers, do you see any upward pressure from your foundry partners in terms of pricing that could cause a little bit more pressure on your gross margin level, particularly at [ 55-nanometer ] node?

And then in turn, regardless of what you're seeing looking ahead with pricing, I think you put through a couple of pricing increases already to your customers. Do you have any visibility on when or if or to what extent you might have to do that again?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Glad to get a question where I can answer on because we don't see any price increase or reduction in '23 to '24 .

[Pål Elstad, executive]

And then on the customer side, if we see any adjustments to customer pricing up or down, was the second part.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

And when it comes to customers, we are -- we have understanding customers that understand that price to them is a function of costs in Nordic. So we have not adjusted costs down.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions].

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Yes, we have questions coming in on the webcast, and we have split them up in topics. We start with guidance. And we have one question from Petter Kongslie, Sparebank 1 Markets. You expected USD 1 billion in revenue, but ended up around $500 million. How is that possible?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

I would say that the current cyclical downturn has been much more severe and prolong that Nordic had anticipated. The current run rate is well below the levels we have expected. And you're right, we are surprised also with a big adjustment. But unfortunately, now we don't have any backing to provide, any guidance beyond current quarter.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Then we have a question from Kristian Spetalen, Arctic. Can you please elaborate on why the visibility is so low? Doesn't your customer have 6- to 12-month forecast?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Yes, our customers have forecast. And what we see also is a lot of push-outs in these forecasts. So they're not so reliable as we would have liked them to be.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Then we have Øystein Lodgaard, ABG. Which specific areas do you see contribution to the additional weakness in Q4 compared to Q3?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

There was no special area but was basically general -- generally lower order.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Let me go over to technology. Petter Kongslie, Sparebank 1. What is your certification market share in cellular?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Unfortunately, there is no body that do certification of cellular. We hope it is because we have currently more than 370 projects that have designed Nordic in. But if [ anyone ] can help us finding a good page and root for sharing those information, we would be very, very happy. We have a strong market or strong design-in ratio.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. [ Vito Frederickson ] Pareto. A question on PMIC. Strategic smart move -- it was a strategic and smart move to increase focus on short- to medium-term profitability. That said, it is difficult to underestimate the upside potential in the future product portfolio. For example, PMIC is something that could [ revolutionize ] the electronic market. Could you please provide more information about the development and potential of PMIC?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

What we see is that new projects starting with Nordic radios usually also onboard a PMIC. And as you know, it's 12 to 18 months from starting a project to finish and completing the project. And we have to gradually see these projects moving out in the market.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

And we just released a new product in PMIC this summer that we get good feedback on.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

That's correct.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Let me go over to questions regarding the verticals and end markets. Mike [ Heiberg ], SEB. How should we understand temporarily lower deliveries to customers in Industrial and Healthcare? Do you see these segments below the Q3 level also in Q4?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

We are guiding down in Q4. And the answer is yes. And these are customers of ours that are making modules to the Industrial market, and they have significantly lower volume now than they used to have in the first half of the year.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

For Healthcare, is and has been one of the growth drivers for Nordic. We commented earlier that it does vary slightly from quarter-to-quarter. But overall, Healthcare is going to be a very important market for us.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. And Mike [ Heiberg ], SEB has another question. You still refer to weak end-customer demand in PC accessories and home/office in addition to inventory adjustment. Yet, we see Consumer application more stable in Q3, while other verticals are weaker. Can you please elaborate?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

We have one customer that is doing okay, basically is holding up the revenue. And we have a lot of Asian customers in Consumer that basically are not performing, revenue-wise.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Then we have a question from Petter Kongslie, Sparebank 1. During COVID-19, you were reluctant to prioritize the tail of customers due to supply constraints. What are the risks that many of these, basically, are -- has swapped to competitors and/or is out of business, given the current macroeconomic environment?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

I think that's a biased question. And yes, we have lost some of these customers. Some have gone bankrupt, yes. But also, there are customers there that we maintain a relationship to. And we still bring offers to, value proposition to new projects that these customers are in the development of now. So we are going to keep a good share of these customers, but some are lost.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

But we still believe we have a broad enough portfolio of product and solutions to cater to this market segment.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

And we can see that on the design win tracker. We maintain our market share of above 40%, and that includes all the long-tail customers.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Simon Coles from Barclays. A question on top 10. It sounds like you expect the current revenue mix of Tier 1 to continue in fourth quarter. But do you have any visibility on how that could develop in the following quarters? Are you seeing any sign of reengagement from other customers?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

I mean we have restrained from commenting out to Q4. And it's also related to that question, unfortunately.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

I have a question from [indiscernible]. How does your customer base look like today?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

It looks extremely exciting if you look at our top 10 customers. Those are the customers that any semiconductor customer who like to have in the portfolio. These are the customers that can help Nordic achieve higher revenue.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Then we have a question regarding inventory from Rob Sanders, Deutsche Bank. Your inventory is bulging. What can you do to get inventory under control? What is the die and wafer bank situation you are facing?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

I think we have control on the inventory. I think that it's also an opportunity for us to buy more wafers on [ 55 nano ]. And we still see possibility that supply will be scarce, going forward, on this technology node. And this will increase our ability to deliver when market comes back, and we don't want to set Nordic in a position with supply constraints as we were in 2022.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

And to the second part of Rob's question, the composition of the inventory, we have slightly high on cellular IoT products, which we've mentioned before. For the rest of inventory, it's a healthy mix between wafers, same with finished goods and finished products. So we have good flexibility when revenue and demand increases.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

On higher-revenue products.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Petter Kongslie, Sparebank 1, has a question regarding gross margin. How can you be able to deliver plus 50% gross margin on a group level, medium term when you have talked about 40% gross margin on cellular? How should we read this?

[Pål Elstad, executive]

So of course, it's -- we are depending on increasing revenues also to the broad markets. Our module does require a healthy composition of Tier 1 and also the broad market. Of course, cellular IoT at 40%, but we also have some of the other new technologies that should deliver higher gross margins than -- on average. So in total, the target is above 50%.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Again, I will refer to design win tracker. I mean, 41% market share is not only on Tier 1 customers. We do have a lot of the broad market of the long-tail market that continues to design with Nordic. So we are depending on getting these products in the market. And that will lift the margin on Bluetooth Low Energy.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. Then we have [indiscernible]. He has a question regarding design wins. Are there any new major design wins in the pipeline that could contribute to revenue in the beginning of '24? Or do you see customer product launches being postponed due to the current weak environment?

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

I think very much we can agree with the question that we see postponement and [ push-out ] of releases of products, unfortunately. And we are not disclosing -- giving any guidance, as I said, outside Q4.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Then we have one question from [ Daniel Peterson ]. Net working capital is not declining, although your sales is. Why is that?

[Pål Elstad, executive]

No, and that's really back to the inventory levels that we -- there's two things on inventory. First of all, as Svenn-Tore mentioned, we have taken a cautious decision to actually utilize opportunity to increase our wafer bank that was unnaturally low in the beginning of the year. And of course, secondly, we did plan for higher revenue this year. So naturally, inventory will increase.

[Ståle Ytterdal, executive]

Thank you. I think that was the last question. Thank you all. Then I'm concluding our Q&A session for today, and I hand over to Svenn-Tore Larsen for the closing remarks.

[Svenn-Tore Larsen, executive]

Okay. Thank you all for listening in. And look forward to seeing you again in the beginning of '24. Maybe even more, looking forward to second half of '24. Thank you for listening.

[Pål Elstad, executive]

Thank you.