Doron Arazi
Analyst · Needham. Please go ahead
Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. This was another strong quarter for Ceragon Networks. Demand for our solutions continues to increase, and we have successfully grown our presence in key geographies. For the second quarter in a row, revenue surpassed $80 million in our book-to-bill ratio, again exceeded 1. We are profitable, generated positive free cash flow and expanded our credit facility with existing lenders further solidifying our liquidity. Importantly, the momentum we experienced in Q1 continued in Q2, and to date, we have not seen any slowdown in customer spending or any of the softness or pressures that some technology providers in adjacent areas of our industry have spoken about. Our performance in the first 6 months of 2023, combined with improving visibility into the third quarter has given us the confidence to increase our full year outlook. Revenue for the quarter was $86.2 million, up 22% year-over-year. Our book-to-bill ratio was again over 1. In fact, our bookings increased sequentially compared to Q1 with particular strength in India and North America, bolstering our confidence in continued momentum. Additionally, we are solidly profitable with $0.05 in non-GAAP earnings per share. Our sales execution in key regions has improved. And the new leadership in Europe, we went through significant organizational restructuring during the quarter. We see a significant opportunity to expand in Europe and are optimistic that the new leadership and this business focused new structure will better position us to drive growth. We are cognizant of the macro environment, and we have seen large players report soft results and outlooks. However, those challenges have not impacted our business. We believe that the demand for wireless transport solutions is driven primarily by the relatively faster time-to-market and lower cost, yet satisfying the increased capacity needs. We are working hard on leveraging our robust products and services offering to capitalize on this situation and are pleased with the results. For the second quarter in a row, the results also demonstrate the improving earnings power of our organization, reflected in expanding gross margins, disciplined operating expenses, investments and improved efficiency. We delivered $2.1 million in GAAP net income in the second quarter and $4.4 million in non-GAAP net income. Ceragon has built a solidly profitable business model, a robust backlog and a diverse set of solutions that address key CapEx and OpEx goals for customers around the world. We have not encountered any significant impact from supply chain disruption in the quarter. And while we continue to carefully manage the supply chain, component availability continues to improve. Our geographic diversification continues to benefit our revenue. In the second quarter, we generated sequential and year-over-year revenue growth in India and year-over-year growth in North America. In India, we generated our fifth consecutive quarter of revenue over $20 million, our highest quarterly revenues in the recent years and continued strong bookings. In North America, we generated revenue of $22.2 million, down from the record of $26.4 million in the first quarter, but up from $15 million in the second quarter last year. We continue to advance the productization of our new System-on-a-Chip technology. To-date, our efforts are advancing according to plan. And while there is much work to be done, we believe we remain on track to launch our new product line in 2024. In addition, in the coming months, we expect to launch new products featuring a lower total cost of ownership. We believe these new additional products will help us expand our market presence and offer tangible benefits to our customers. These products are also expected to help us with our long-term goal of improving gross margins. I’d now like to give an overview on our Q2 highlights by region. Noting that on today’s call we will focus primarily on activities in North America and India, the two regions that have and we expect will continue to have the greatest impact on our quarterly results. In North America, the 5G build continues to be strong, especially with Tier 1 carriers. We have continued to receive orders from major carriers, with one customer driving a significant portion of our volume. We have been engaging on new opportunities where technology can be deployed in new ways. For example, we recently signed an agreement to partner with one of the leading open run vendors to deliver a wireless high-capacity, low-latency multi-gigabit transport solution for Caribbean customers’ new 5G open radio access network. We utilized our existing IP-50FX disaggregated open router, providing the customer with an advanced switching and open routing solution. The deployment of this project is ongoing, and we have received very positive feedback from the end customer. We are also expecting additional business to expand network and support network operations. This represents the first of its kind open-run, open-routing and open transport project in North America. We are also pursuing municipal and infrastructure-related contracts, including recent wins. A great example is the multiyear contract worth up to $4.2 million with the City of Cincinnati we signed during the quarter to upgrade the city public safety network. Ceragon is deploying a multi-technology multi-service solution that provides a robust modernized backhaul and routing solution, followed by a long-term maintenance and support plan. This solution includes turnkey services, including design and engineering, equipment rollout and integration of the solution to enable the city to support mission-critical applications such as artificial intelligence, automation and real-time video. We continue to see many opportunities that introduce additional potential demand for our solutions. The 5G higher frequencies availability as well as the evolving need for heterogeneous services profiles with guaranteed level of service to different end users are driving up this potential demand. This demand is also reflected in multiple RFPs in which we participate, covering all segments of our addressable market, namely Tier-1 operators, rural ISPs and small carriers as well as private networks. Some of these opportunities, particularly in the rural broadband and critical infrastructure segments may take longer to mature as they are also supported by federal and state funding plans. These initiatives remain a critical area for incremental opportunity and diversification for our business. We believe we are increasingly well positioned to capitalize on all of these opportunities when they mature. I’d also note that we have been successful in increasing our services business in the region, which often can double the value of an individual deal. In India, telcos continue to aggressively invest in 4G technology network while beginning to deploy 5G in certain regions. We are working with operators in the market for 5G rollout and enhancement in selected regions. 4G continues to be the dominant subscription type in India, with 4G subscriptions expected to peak in 2024. Simultaneously, the 5G rollout is accelerating, especially in urban areas. We continue to deliver our products for 4G networks as well as delivering our E-band, multiband solution for 5G networks at an increased pace. We delivered another strong booking quarter in India, giving us improved visibility for revenue for the second half of the year. Demand remains robust. We are anticipating promising growth with 5G adoption, a trend that is accelerating as 5G handsets become more and more affordable. To summarize, we are delivering solid execution and conditions continue to improve, both on the macro and the micro level. Demand for our solutions is strong, and supply chain availability has been getting better. Quarter-to-quarter variability in our financials is always a reality, but trailing 12-month trends for our business, which we think are a strong indicator to our performance trajectory are solid and improving, both from a revenue and a profitability standpoint. We believe we can deliver a similar revenue trajectory for the foreseeable future and that we can be profitable on a non-GAAP basis for each quarter this year. Before I turn the call over to Ronen to walk through the numbers, I wanted to mention that we filed our proxy statement with the SEC for the 2023 Annual General Meeting, where we have nominated Ilan Rosen, who has been serving on our Board since July 2021, as the new Chairman of our Board of Directors. Ilan brings significant corporate governance expertise as well as track record of successful M&A and value creation. He also has significant experience in the telco industry. He currently serves as a Managing Director of HarbourVest Partners, LLC, a global private equity firm. We have also nominated Ms. Yael Shaham to be appointed by the shareholders as a new Independent Director on our Board. Yael has more than 25 years of experience in management and strategic leadership roles and the wealth of business and technology knowledge, particularly in leading the development of robust software solutions for the telecom space and selling them under managed services models. We believe that Yael’s vast experience can be a great contributor to us in advancing and executing our strategy. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Ronen Stein, our CFO, to discuss the results in more details. Ronen, over to you.