Cirrus Logic (NASDAQ:CRUS) Q1 2023 Earnings Call

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Cirrus Logic first quarter fiscal year 2023 financial results Q&A session. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After a brief statement, we will open up the call for questions from analysts. Instructions for queuing up will be provided at that time. As a reminder, this conference is is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Chelsea Heffernan, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Heffernan, please begin. Thank you and good afternoon. Joining me on today's call is John Forsyth, Cirrus Logic's Chief Executive Officer and Venk Natamuni, Chief Financial Officer.

0:52 Today we announced our financial results for the first quarter fiscal year 2023 at approximately 4 p.m. Eastern time. The shareholder letter discussing our financial results, the earnings press release, along with the webcast of this Q&A session are all available at the company's investor relations website. This call will feature questions from analysts covering a company. Additionally, the results and guidance we will discuss on the call will include non-GAT financial measures that exclude certain items, reconciliations, of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and are all available on the company's investor relations website.

1:38 Please note that during this session, we may make projections and other forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results to differ materially from projections. By providing this information, The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any projections or forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new developments or otherwise. Please refer to the press release and the shareholder letter issued today, which are available on the Cirrus Logic website, and the latest 10-K, as well as corporate filings registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For additional discussion of risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the current expectations. Now I'd like to turn the call over to John.

2:29 Thank you, Chelsea, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. As you have seen in the press release, Cirrus Logic delivered outstanding results with record first quarter revenue, even in light of continued supply chain constraints. Before we discuss the details of those results, I'd like to take a moment to recap the three key pillars of the strategy driving the momentum and success that we are now seeing. These are, one, maintaining our leadership position in smartphone audio by continuing to deliver world-class products and outstanding execution to the leading customers in the market. Two, broadening sales of audio components into key profitable applications beyond smartphones. And three, leveraging our world-class mixed signal engineering expertise in order to build a growing footprint of products outside of audio.

3:21 in the area we call our high performance mixed signal product lines. We believe this area will yield significant opportunities both within smartphones and beyond. This quarter, we continue to execute on all three fronts to an impressive extent. In audio, we've been encouraged by customer engagement across our portfolio of amplifiers and codecs. During the quarter, we began developing a next generation smart codec for smartphones in the 22 nanometer process node and also began initial production ramps ahead of new smartphone introductions later this year. Additionally, we are proud to have recently received the Galaxy Quality Best Award from Samsung's MX division for our quality performance.

4:07 This further demonstrates the reputation Cirrus Logic has for outstanding execution among our world-class customers. Despite a near-term slowdown in demand in the laptop market, customer engagement there remains strong. and we continue to see an increased opportunity for high quality audio in laptops as we benefit from several secular trends that we believe can contribute to revenue growth and market diversity longer term. To capitalize on these trends, we are now sampling a new amplifier and recently taped out a new codec, both optimized specifically for the emerging audio architectures in laptops. In fiscal year 2023, We expect to see over 40 new laptop models come to market featuring our components.

4:54 Turning to our high performance mixed signal product lines, development and design activity are stronger than ever across this category. Our customer engagement and the close engineering collaboration with our customer around camera controllers continues to strengthen as we work together to identify new opportunities to enable advanced functionality and to improve the camera experience. In fiscal year 2023, we expect to benefit from both a higher attach rate of our camera controller in the newest devices and also a more favorable mix of smartphones on the market that include our camera components. And in power, building on the success of our first generation power conversion and control IC, we are today investing in intellectual property and capabilities that will bring further innovations and address new challenges including those of battery health and longevity in the coming years.

5:50 In summary, we're delighted with our financial results, our customer engagement and our progress in executing against our strategy in the quarter. We remain focused on serving our customers, diversifying our product portfolio and broadening our addressable market into new application areas. With the wide range of technology investments we're making today, we believe we have a solid pipeline of opportunities to expand HPMS dollar content in fiscal year 2024 and beyond. And with that, let me now turn the call over to Venk to provide an overview of our financial results for our fiscal first quarter 2023, as well as guidance for fiscal Q2 2023. Thank you, John. Fiscal first quarter revenue was $393.6 million and a record for the June quarter.

6:42 Revenue was up 42% from a year ago and about the high end of our guidance range. Our strong results were driven by high performance mixed signal content gains and, to a lesser extent, higher ASPs. Non-GAAP gross profit in the quarter was $202.9 million and non-GAAP gross margin was 51.5% and exceeded expectations due to favorable product mix. On a sequential basis, gross margin was down as cost increases that took effect in January were fully reflected in product shipments during the June quarter. This was partially offset by a favorable product mix.

7:29 The year-over-year change in gross margin reflects the favorable impact of higher ASPs on our general market products. Going forward, we expect gross margin to be more in line with our long-term model, and I'll cover this topic more in the guidance section. Non-GAAP operating expenses in the quarter were $119.5 million, down $3.6 million sequentially. despite higher revenue. And the sequential decline was primarily driven by a reduction in variable compensation and employee-related costs. This was partially offset by higher product development expenses.

8:19 Non-GAAP operating income was $83.4 million in the first quarter, or 21% of revenue. Non-GAAP net income in the first quarter was $64.5 million, or $1.12 per share. Let me now turn to the balance sheet. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we ended the first quarter of fiscal year 23 with approximately $454 million in cash and cash equivalents. This was up roughly $9.5 million from the prior quarter due to strong cash flow generation, partially offset by stock repurchases during the quarter. I'd note we have no debt outstanding.

9:07 Inventory was $174 million, up $36 million sequentially, and days of inventory was 83 days in Q1, up 28 days sequentially. I'd note this is in line with normal seasonal trends as we began building ahead of product launches later this year. Turning to cash flow, Cash flow from operations was $74.4 million in the quarter, and free cash flow for the quarter was $67.1 million. In Q1, we utilized $56.4 million to repurchase roughly 725,000 shares of our common stock at an average price of $77.78. As of the end of Q1 fiscal year 23, We had $136.1 million remaining in our 2021 share repurchase authorization.

10:08 Furthermore, the board of directors last month authorized the company to repurchase up to an additional $500 million of the company's common stock. We expect to continue to return capital in the form of stock repurchases, which we believe will provide a long-term benefit to shareholders going forward. and now on to the guidance. For the fiscal second quarter of 2023, we expect revenue in the range of $450 million to $490 million. On a year-over-year basis, our expected revenue growth is largely driven by higher ASPs and, to a lesser extent, increased high-performance mixed signal content in smartphones.

10:54 As I alluded to earlier, We expect gross margins to be around our long-term model of 50% due primarily to product mix. As a result, in the September quarter, we expect gross margin to range from 49% to 51%. Non-GAAP operating expense is expected to be up sequentially in the range of $123 million to $129 million. The sequential increase is expected to be driven primarily by higher product development costs. We expect SG&A to remain flat sequentially. On the tax front, as we mentioned in our Q4 fiscal 22 earnings release, due largely to a tax rule effective this year that requires companies to capitalize and amortize R&D expenses rather than deduct them in the current year, we expect our fiscal 23 non-GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 23% to 25%.

11:57 We continue to anticipate that under this rule, our effective tax rate will decrease and may return to a normalized range in about five years as additional years of R&D expenses are amortized for tax purposes absent any changes to the legislation. However, there appears to be legislative support for delaying or eliminating this rule, which we are watching closely. I'd note that without the impact of this rule, Our non-GAAP effective tax rate would be in our more typical mid-teens range. In closing, we had a strong Q1 fiscal year 2023. Going forward, we will focus on the best opportunities to enable the company to continue to grow both revenue and profitability over the long term.

12:47 And before we begin the Q&A, I'd like to note that while we understand there is intense interest related to our largest customer, In accordance with Cirrus Logic company policy, we will not discuss specifics about this business relationship. With that, let me turn the call to Chelsea to start the Q&A session. Thanks, Venk. We will now start the Q&A portion of the earnings call. Please limit yourself to a single question and one follow-up. Operator, we are now ready to take questions. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, Press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you are also listening via the webcast, please mute your computer speakers prior to asking your question.

13:34 Your first question comes from the line of Matt Ramsey with Cowan. Your line is open. Thank you very much, John Vink. Good afternoon and congratulations on the results. I just wanted to ask one question, John, in the scripts. You were, I think, much more specific about the number of engagements and the number of potential wins and the trends in the business that you might have in audio going into the notebook market. I think we're all aware of some of the challenges in notebook units globally, but this is all greenfield for you guys. I wonder if you might characterize how large that opportunity could be for Cirrus in the long term relative to the smartphone business. I'll just go ahead and ask my follow-up while I'm on.

14:21 It's a bit unrelated, but I noticed the Android piece of your audio business down pretty sharply, which I guess is no surprise given what's going on in the China smartphone market in the mid-tier. I just wonder if you guys feel going into the latter half of the calendar year that that business has been de-risked. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate the kind words there. Let me talk about the laptop market first. Yes, we're specific on the rate of design activity we see there because we think it's very exciting. I appreciate there are some headwinds in that market right now with something of a slowdown, but if there's a demand pause, that doesn't really change what we see as being the fundamental drivers of our strategy, which are based around, as I mentioned, secular factors to do with an evolving audio architecture and alongside that potential opportunities in haptics and power as well.

15:27 So all of those really excite us about the laptop market, given, as you say, the fact that it's really greenfield opportunity for us. and we tend to do well when we've got good relationships with a small number of big customers and today we're engaged in shipping with four out of the top five laptop OEMs. So again, that positions as well. In terms of the overall size, I'm not going to predict what we can do, but from a From a SAM perspective, we see this within our strategic planning horizon as getting to a billion-dollar SAM or higher across audio haptics and power.

16:12 So it's a very attractive market for us, and you can see the momentum that we're building there today. I'm going to move on from that to your question about Android. And I'm going to refer back to comments I made, I think, last time around that really our business today and this year has really been supply constrained. And one of the impacts of that is having to be very selective about which sockets we chase within smartphones and elsewhere. But that has had an impact on on our Android business. So it's not a question of being short to customers in a given month.

16:59 It's a question of not committing to certain designs if we didn't feel confident we had the supply. So we anticipate our Android business still being supply constrained through the rest of fiscal 23. That said, we're well embedded in the flagship Your next question is from the line of Tori Svanberg with Stifel. Your line is open. Yes, thank you and congrats on the results. First question is on the new smart codec. I know typically this chip changes every two to three years or so.

17:49 I was just wondering about the dynamics there as far as pricing. I assume that you have some new features and things like that. Is that an opportunity to perhaps get some better prices on the latest and greatest smart codec? Yeah, thank you, Tori. First of all, on the timing there, the time in market or the lifespan of both codecs and boosted amplifiers has been elongating over the years. That's partly a product of relative product maturity. So it certainly backed off a bit from the cadence when they were updated every couple of years.

18:39 But yes, it is a significant update to a significant product for us. I'm not going to speak to pricing specifically this far out, but as you know, when we make a large investment of effort that it takes to migrate a lot of mixed signal circuitry to a new process node, that's typically because we see an opportunity and a requirement to pack in a lot more digital processing. That's really the logic that drives you down from, in this case, from 55 nanometer to 22 nanometer. And that increased processing represents more features and capabilities. And so you do typically expect to see some ASP accretion in line with that.

19:24 Great. Thank you for that. And that's my follow-up. You mentioned the shareholder letter that you know given the tightness of especially 55 nanometer you know you do intend to move down to to lower geometries I was hoping you can expand a little bit on that because obviously you know there's more capacity there but you know it's it's also more leading edge which you know could be more expensive right so I just want to make sure that you know I understand this correctly you you want to go there because there's more capacity but you're not going to go really really really advanced you know where perhaps The nodes are significantly more expensive than at the 55 nanometer node. Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, Tari. It is different depending on the product line, whether or not that's the right thing to do. Just to back up a little on that topic, as you know, last year we took this important strategic step of putting in place a long-term agreement with Global Foundries to help support our growth and our customers' plans.

20:32 And I think on every call since then, I've said if we could get more supply, we would take it. That's partly because of the strong demand environment that we see immediately around us in the near term, but it's also partly because we see a pipeline of further opportunities to grow dollar content ahead of us. And we need both capacity and new technologies in order to capitalize on those opportunities. In some cases, those may be technologies available on 55 nanometer, in some cases 22 nanometer, in some cases there may be other options. But you're right, the economics are different, and the suitability of a given process node will depend on the nature of the exact product.

21:24 I will say driving high voltage, high precision mixed signal to ever more advanced geometries has been a key part of where a lot of our competitive advantage lies. So expect to see us continue to do that. Obviously, our investment in the 22 nanometer codec is a great case in point. Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Roland with Susquehanna. Your line is open. Hi, guys. Thank you for the question. I guess my question is around power and some of your mixed signal capabilities there. First, I guess traction or an update for Lion and how that's going.

22:11 And then secondly, can you talk about your power conversion roadmap? and any capabilities we might see there increase in that roadmap over time. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Well, we continue to be excited about both what the Lion team and the Lion IP can bring to us in terms of both product and market diversity. Obviously, at the time of the acquisition, the Lion team's and many more. And I think that our sole focus was really on the Chinese smartphone market, which you may have heard has experienced some headwinds. But our vision for those technologies always went well beyond those products.

23:00 So it happens that since that acquisition, the team has made some great progress and some notable gains in smartphones outside of China, Today, at least a major part of that team is focused on developing products for other markets, including the laptop market, which I referred to a little earlier as having some meaningful power opportunities for us there as well. So we think that market diversity is going to be a good part of where that team's future lies. Regarding our broader power market, I mean, you asked about the roadmap there. I'm not going to go into specifics. Obviously, the power conversion stuff we've done to date has been custom silicon focused on battery health and longevity. We think there's significant opportunity for further innovation around the battery.

23:59 So we're investing in that. That's a big focus of our R&D efforts over the past year and in the coming years. So I'll leave it there, given the custom nature of those products. Great. Thanks, John. And I think you did mention Android. That's really my follow-up here. I guess, first of all, how would you describe the state of the state in the Android market now, and then beyond maybe inventories or sell-through or whatever the downside there is? would love to know what you're seeing in terms of design and your best opportunities as you see them looking forward in Android for Cirrus.

24:50 Yeah, I think the China-based Android smartphone slowdown has been well covered, and I think we first started talking about that in the December, when we were covering the December quarter last year, given that we saw it We saw it beginning then. Outside of there in Android, you know, we continue to be very well engaged, obviously, with Samsung and other top tier Android vendors. And I think top tier is probably how I'd characterize it given current supply constrained environment. I think there's no doubt that we're the first choice for flagship audio in Android smartphones. We make the best mobile amplifiers on the planet.

25:35 and we have very, very good relationships with the customers there. To the extent that we can expand supply, we would expect to be able to sell more over time. Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question is from David Williams with The Benchmark Company. Your line is open. Hey, good afternoon and thanks for taking the question. I guess first, you talked a little bit about the supply constraints, but just kind of wondering if you'd maybe elaborate on that a bit. How are you seeing things generally? Is it improving, stable? And maybe just from the consumer electronics kind of softness that we've seen, do you think that you'll get a little better maybe available capacity?

26:29 Well, we've seen in certain areas Limited incremental capacity upsides, but I think it's important to keep in mind that the majority of our revenue is based around a couple of processes and process nodes at major foundry partners, which are still experiencing very, very high demand. So we haven't seen significant movement there as yet. And I think maybe just around the OPEX, if we think about it for the year, just some of the investment initiatives you have, how should we think about OPEX trending for the year and maybe longer term? Yeah, thanks for the question. This is Vang.

27:15 So, you know, as we look at the OPEX, you know, the last couple of quarters, we have, you know, trended to increase our R&D primarily because we see a good funnel and good pipeline of opportunities for us to to grow the revenue over the long term. And so we'll be very deliberate about investments in R&D. But as it relates to SG&A, we'll actually guide it for it to be flat. So we're not going to give full year guidance at this point, but it's probably a fair guess that we'll be very thoughtful about our investments going forward. We will continue to invest in R&D for the long term. But wherever it makes sense for us to control hiring for non-critical functions and such, we will do so.

28:05 Your next question is from the line of Blaine Curtis with Barclays. Your line is open. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. This is Tom O'Malley. I'm from Blaine Curtis. I just wanted to ask on the seasonality into September. Obviously, earlier in the year, you had kind of a cautious outlook into June and it ended up being a bit better. But as you look into September compared to the past couple of years, it looks slightly less seasonal. And your commentary has really been around increased content and some better ASPs. So could you talk to whether that's conservatism or if you're seeing some slowdown just because from the broad perspective, particularly your large customer, things seem pretty good. So just on the September guidance and why that's a little less seasonal than in prior years. Yeah, let me take that one. So as you pointed out, our March and June quarter numbers were pretty strong. And clearly, there's lots of shifting as it relates to the macro and such.

29:01 As it relates to our specific bookings and booking patterns, we don't see anything that's different from what we've seen in prior years. But one thing to expect is that the order pattern should be more linear towards the rest of the year, primarily because of the significant Upside that we saw in the March and June quarters. But overall, I would say that the order patterns are as expected. Clearly, for this particular quarter, we see one of our lead customers actually build for their product launch. And that's kind of driving our shipments as well. But we would just not read too much into that at this point. And we think that the linearity for the rest of the year should be a little more pronounced than it has been in prior years.

29:48 Helpful. And then just on the Android market, obviously the weakness that you've seen in the near term was pretty severe. Is there any hope that there's a bounce off the bottom into the September quarter? Just any color on if you see a slightly improving market there or if you expect things to further deteriorate? Thank you. I don't think we have any additional color on the Android market specifically in the coming quarter, Tom. I mean, I wish I did. Clearly, there's just a lot of macro uncertainty there. We're obviously shipping a lot of silicon into products within the smartphone market where the demand has been really very resilient.

30:35 As you know, the Android market just has seemingly a lot more uncertainty around it. If I can add to it, as just John pointed out, Clearly, we are shipping to the slice of the market that seems to have a little more robustness around it. And we're all reading the same science in terms of what's happening in China as it relates to Android and also the rest of the world. And as the macro situation develops, we'll keep an eye. But most of our focus has been primarily driven by the shipments that we've made into the high end of the market. and as Dwayne pointed out earlier, those are still supply constrained. Our final question comes from the line of Ananda Barwa with Loop Capital.

31:27 Your line is open. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question, too, if I could. This may be stating the obvious, but on the audio constraint, assuming that there's no real inventory built up sort of throughout your ecosystem, or at least not significant. And so, you know, sort of seasonality over the next couple quarters will probably ebb and flow more with what true demand is. Is that sort of a fair assumption? I have a quick follow-up as well. Yeah, thank you, Renata. Obviously, our view of that is imperfect, but we ship based on the demand signals that we see from our customers.

32:18 But given the quantity of our silicon that goes into smartphones where our customers have publicly commented on the robustness of demand and the fact that really on the supply side, we've spent the whole year with the team just working as hard as it can just to keep up with demand for those products. I think the likelihood that there is a significant buffer of silicon out there is comparatively low. That's super helpful, thanks. And just a quick follow-up on the laptop. You mentioned in the shareholder letter you kind of work from home, remote work, being a catalyst. And so is that to say that there is a...

33:07 sort of a skew in the 4D laptops towards commercial exposure as opposed to consumer exposure. That is certainly a meaningful part of it, yes. That's one of the secular drivers that I don't think is going to change. Certainly from conversations I've had with very senior people running laptop businesses within some of those four out of the top five OEMs that I talked about, they will admit that audio did not used to be a feature that was very high on the spec list, and it absolutely needs to be first class now, the AV experience. And that's really driven by the pervasive nature of hybrid working.

34:02 That's going to be true in consumer, of course, but we do see that as being highly relevant in the enterprise segment as well. With that, we will end the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to John for his final remarks. Thank you, Chelsea. In summary, in the June quarter, Cirrus Logic delivered record first quarter revenue driven by strong execution across our three strategic drivers. continuing our leadership in smartphone audio, broadening sales of audio components in key profitable applications beyond smartphones, and applying our mixed signal expertise to expand into new adjacent high-performance mixed signal markets. We're more excited than ever about the opportunities that we see ahead, and we thank you for your continued interest in Cirrus Logic.

34:49 Before we close, I'd also like to note that we will be participating in the KeyBank Conference on August the 8th in Vail. Please check our investor website for the details. If you have any questions that were not addressed, you can submit them to us via the Ask the CEO section of our investor website. I'd like to thank everyone for participating today. Thank you. Goodbye.