Emily Yang
Analyst · Benchmark
Thank you, Brad, and good afternoon. Revenue in the third quarter was up 7.1% sequentially and at the midpoint of our guidance, mainly driven by strong demand in Asia, especially in Taiwan for the AI computing applications. Our global point of sales increased in Asia, followed by North America and our channel inventory decreased both in dollars and in weeks. During the quarter, we continued to drive our new product initiative with approximately 180 new part numbers, of which 60 were for automotive applications. Looking at the global sales in the third quarter, Asia represented 78% of the revenue; Europe, 12%; and North America, 10%. In terms of our end markets, industrial was 22% of Diodes product revenue; automotive, 19%; computing, 28%; consumer, 18%; and communications, 13% of the product revenue. Our automotive industrial revenue combined was 41%, which was 1 percentage point lower compared to the last quarter. Even though automotive industrial revenue increased quarter-over-quarter, the computing end market experienced stronger growth than the 7% of the company average for the quarter and the industrial market grew at a lower rate than the average. Now let me review the end markets in greater details. Starting with automotive. Revenue in the quarter grew 8.5% sequentially and 18.5% in the first 3 quarters over last year, even though as a percentage of the total product revenue was flat to the last quarter due to the growth in the other markets. The revenue increase during the quarter serves as a further evidence that the inventory situation continued to improve even though the overall demand remained dynamic and the pace of recovery is slower than expected. The other positive news is that we are starting to see more new programs scheduled to ramp early next year. Our controllers and MOSFET combination from the low-voltage MOSFET product line has established a strong presence in the automotive DC source applications. Our newly released 50A and 650-volt automotive-grade Silicon Carbide Schottky Barrier Diodes are specifically seeing traction in energy storage systems. And our small signal bipolar junction transistors devices packaged in DFM are proving to be valuable for general-purpose signal switching, offering flexibility and compactness for various electronic designs. Additionally, our latest NPN and PNP bipolar junction transistor products feature industrial-leading low saturated voltage, making them ideal for a range of automotive applications. These products are ideally suited for voltage regulation, DC-DC converters, motors as well as LED lighting, engine control units, power management and linear controllers. Diodes TVS products are being designed into battery management system applications, providing robust search and overvoltage protection for reliable automotive battery performance. In addition to our TVS products, our switching diodes, Zener diodes and SBR products have design wins in autonomous driving, telematics and infotainment applications. And our USB 2, signal booster devices are being adopted for in-car charging solutions and other cockpit electronics, enabling stable signal transmission in long cable environments. We have also seen strong demand for our low quiescent current LDO operating at 40 to 60 volt, driven by increased production of MCU power supply systems. Our automotive Hall effect sensors, including latch and Omnipolar switch variant have experienced double-digit growth, driven by new design wins in DC motors, window and tailgate lifters, cooling fans and glass ball sensors. This momentum is expected to continue as automotive design become increasingly more sophisticated. And lastly, our LED driver are seeing solid demand supporting a diverse range of applications such as gear shift control indicators, interior cabin lighting and mood lighting. Turning to industrial market. Similar to the automotive market, the inventory situation continues to improve gradually with revenue in this market grew almost 4% sequentially and 13% for the first 9 months. We continue to expect the overall inventory situation will begin to normalize next year. We are seeing applications such as AI robotics, medical and factory automation gaining strong demand momentum. With the increasing power consumption by new systems, the importance of power supply and backup power solutions for AI servers is becoming increasingly critical. Next-generation server power supply systems are transitioning from the current 48-volt system to 400-volt and 800-volt systems and adopting a stand-alone power rack design. Diodes SBR products, Silicon Carbide MOSFET, ideal diode controllers are gaining traction in this innovative applications are increasingly being adopted by a range of power supply customers. Additionally, our portfolio of 50M 1,200-volt Silicon Carbide Schottky Barrier Diodes products are achieving success in energy storage applications, delivering efficient and reliable performance. And our silicon carbide MOSFETs are also seeing increasing adoption, especially for applications such as EV chargers and power supply for AI surfers and data center applications. Also in the industrial, Diodes TVS products are being integrated into power adapters to provide robust ESD and search protection, enhancing device reliability and our high-voltage sensors, low dropout regulators and voltage reference solutions are demonstrating strong momentum in a variety of industrial applications, including fan motors, household appliances, power tools and e-meters. In the computing market, we saw the strongest growth this quarter, increasing almost 17% sequentially and 22% in the first 9 months compared to last year. The highlight continues to be the strong demand momentum for AI-related applications. With the chipset refresh cycle underway, we are gaining strong traction and market share across our connectivity and timing product line with particular strength in PCI Express 5.0 and 6.0 clock solutions. This growth is fueled by increasing demand within AI, data center and edge computing applications. Our level shifter products are also seeing notable expansion, especially in server applications with major customers. Additionally, our signal integrity and high-speed switch portfolio, including USB4 and PCIe 5 and 6 has gained significant traction. These products are being widely adopted in key applications such as AI cars for server and solid-state drivers. Our ESD protection devices are also increasingly being integrated into SSD applications, showing a positive ramp-up. We also continue to secure design wins for our PCI Express 4.0 and 5.0 redriver solutions and are now entering solid production phase in both notebook and SSD applications. And our power switches are in high demand for the data center SSDs, while USB-C source switch are being utilized in power ports for the desktop and docking stations. Our linear LED drivers are also seeing increased deployment in servers. In the consumer market, revenue also increased 8.5% sequentially and 7% for the first 9 months, even though flat as a percentage of the total product revenue. Diodes bridge rectifiers are being designed into multiple power adapters that are ramping up, fueled by increased demand in the gaming systems. The adoption of DP 2.0 redrivers is on the rise in high-resolution gaming monitors, supporting enhanced image quality and faster refresh rates. Additionally, adoption of our MIPI switches and redrivers is also ramping up as they are being incorporated into augmented reality glasses, signaling rapid growth opportunities in wearable display technologies. Lastly, in the communication market, overall growth was relatively flat sequentially and a slight decrease for the first 9 months. We are, however, seeing pockets of growth driven by the AI and high-speed interconnect applications. This demand is being driven diodes introduction of new crystal oscillators that offer significant lower jitter less than 60 femtoseconds and also support higher frequency, now reaching 312.5 megahertz in addition to the previous 156.25 megahertz. These advanced oscillators are gaining adoption in the optical transceiver modules, which are integral to the high-speed 800G and 1.6T optical communications within data center and the auto directional level shifter and the low dropout regulators experienced strong demand driven by the growth of AI-enabled smartphone applications. In summary, our continued year-over-year growth momentum is a result of our past design wins and content expansion initiatives across our target end markets. Additionally, our continuous investment in new product introduction in our high-margin end markets of automotive industrial position us well for a return to strong growth in those markets as the recovery accelerates. And with a return to more healthy inventory level and shipments more closely reflecting true end demand, we expect to see increased loading at our manufacturing facilities and improving margin over the coming quarters. With that, we now open the floor to questions. Operator?