Dave Heinzmann
Analyst · Oppenheimer. Christopher, your line is now open
Thanks, Meenal. Starting with the electronics segment, first quarter sales of $154 million increased 56% and grew 15% organically. Our strong fourth quarter performance continued into the first quarter despite the typical impacts of the Chinese New Year. Sales were strong in Europe and Asia and picked up in North America towards the end of the quarter. All of our product lines showed strong growth. First quarter margins remain strong due to leverage from the higher revenues as well as favorable mix. Sell-through by our distributors and electronics channel inventories both increased about 10% year-over-year. At this point, we believe inventory levels are in line with market conditions. As we have been in a robust electronics cycle for two quarters now, we continue to keep a close eye on distributor ordering patterns and inventory levels as there is a risk of inventory pullback late in the cycle. As part of our updated strategy, each business is focusing on several end markets that offer exceptional growth opportunities. I will talk about progress in four of these markets across the electronics segment. They are battery protection, cloud computing and the Internet of Things, LED lighting and automotive electronics. Looking at battery protection, we are expanding into other markets outside of mobile devices. One of these is gaming machines, where our PolySwitch resettable fuse has been selected by a major manufacturer in Japan to protect the battery pack on their new equipment. Another opportunity in the battery market is the trend towards energy storage for home-based solar systems. These systems store power in a local battery system that can continue providing support when no solar power is being generated. During the first quarter, we were successful in getting our TVS diode designed into these systems to provide protection when the power is converted from the solar panels to the batteries. We also have electronic fuse products designed into these systems. Last quarter, we mentioned the opening of our new Silicon Valley technology center. Our team there is facilitating collaboration with several global OEMs and battery suppliers in the power tool category, which is the new focus area for us. A nice win in this new area is with a leading North American manufacturer of power tools that will contribute about $1 million in incremental revenues. Our ability to offer sensors, over-voltage, over-current and over-temperature protection at a systems engineering level is a distinct advantage for Littelfuse. Datacom and cloud computing is another targeted market with excellent growth opportunities. We provide protection for various consumer devices as well as the infrastructure that supports these products. For example, sales of our high-powered TVS diodes that protect the power supply in cell phone base stations contributed over $3 million in first quarter sales. The key driver for this growth is regional 4G build-outs, most notably in India where people typically access the Internet through their mobile devices. We also added new business with telecommunication equipment suppliers globally for a protection thyristor that provides over-voltage protection for high-speed telecom circuits that transmit data through telephone lines. We expect revenues from this growing market to exceed $1 million in 2017. We are also well-positioned in the data center infrastructure market with two recent wins that will add nearly $1 million of new sales. One of these wins is with a leading backup generator company in North America, where our technical expertise enabled us to increase the capacity within the same size fuse, winning us the business. The second win is with a major enterprise router maker in North America and India for its enhanced outdoor router design for harsh conditions. Products from both our passive and semiconductor portfolios were selected for this application, highlighting the strong portfolio synergies within the electronics segment. Protecting high-speed data ports is a targeted growth area for our diode array products. We are well-positioned in a number of high-end consumer applications and expect to realize more than $4 million of revenue in 2017. In addition, we had multiple wins in the first quarter for applications such as smartphones and Ethernet ports that are expected to add another $3 million of revenue this year. LED lighting, in general, is proving to be a very successful growth area for us, with our total annual sales into this market now approaching $20 million. India was our strongest region for outdoor lighting sales in this first quarter, with sales of about $1 million. New business for our temperature-protected varistor and surge protection module with a leading lighting OEM in India will add another $350,000. We are also seeing more activity in both North America and Europe, reflecting an uptick in demand and the restarting of some government programs. Our automotive electronics business is growing at a fast space, with $3 million in new business wins in the first quarter. Wins related to the products we acquired from ON Semiconductor last year include $1 million of new revenues at peak with a major Tier 1 supplier for our TVS diode applications in electric vehicles. We also secured design wins for ignition IGBT programs at two major Tier 1 suppliers that will add an additional $1 million in annual revenue. Other automotive electronics design wins include fuses and varistors at two major U.S. OEMs for electric vehicle battery management and charging. We have talked in the past about our strategy to develop a stronger position in power control semiconductors through the silicon carbide technology being developed by Monolith Semiconductor. In March, we made an incremental $15 million investment in Monolith, giving us majority ownership of the company. We believe silicon carbide is a game changing technology that enables power control devices, such as power inverters and motor controls, to switch faster and provide more efficient power control. Our additional investment in Monolith is a significant step in developing our position in this market. The next major step is to begin releasing products and we will keep you updated on our progress in future calls. In summary, we believe our broad and deep product line, established relationships with more than 100,000 customers worldwide and our focus on targeted growth markets will continue to drive the future growth of our electronics segment. Next is the industrial segment. With sales of $24 million in the first quarter, sales were down 17% versus last year. Excluding last year’s e-house business divestiture, sales were down 10%. The decline versus a strong first quarter last year reflects the weaknesses in the oil and gas, mining and solar markets we previously discussed. However, we are encouraged by the 6% sequential growth across the segment, with some signs of stabilization in these end markets. We continue to pursue growth opportunities focused on increasing safety and improving productivity. During the first quarter, we launched a revolutionary motor protection relay with a first in the industry Bluetooth-enabled interface. Operators can use a smartphone to remotely change a device’s settings or analyze data. This increases operator safety by not exposing the worker to arc flash hazards or dangerous live wires and also increases productivity. A key priority is improving profitability in this business to get back to a double digit operating margin by year end. Our first quarter profitability was impacted by costs related to our legacy e-house business. As part of last year’s divestiture of that business, we retain responsibility for a few projects and as a result, incurred costs in the first quarter. We expect some additional costs in the second quarter. Excluding these costs, the industrial segment would have finished the first quarter with a mid single-digit operating margin. We are encouraged by the early results we are seeing in our growth strategy across the industrial segment as well as signs of end market stability. We remain focused on initiatives to improve profitability. That brings us to the automotive segment, where first quarter sales of $108 million were up 17% over the prior year quarter. Our passenger car fuse, PolySwitch and commercial vehicle products businesses all had a positive quarter. As expected, our sensor business was down as we continue to transition customers out of low margin legacy programs. Total passenger car fuse sales grew in excess of car builds, excluding currency effects. Strong performance in China and Europe was partially offset by lower growth in North America. In China, we benefited from the continued tax incentive for smaller cars and also from orders that carried over from last year. In North America, we were impacted by timing of certain programs ending and also saw Tier 1s reducing their inventory levels. In the automotive sensor business, sales declined due to transitions out of low margin legacy programs and related last time buys during the first quarter – or the first half of 2016. We also saw some delays in our customers’ program launches. Organic sales of our commercial vehicle products or CVP, increased slightly over last year. On an encouraging note, we saw solid sales growth sequentially as well as increased demand in the construction markets in North America and Asia. The automotive team made good progress on several of the strategic growth areas we highlighted at our December Analyst Day. These include the electrification of vehicles, expanding our presence in Japan, growth opportunities in sensors and power distribution modules in commercial vehicles. The increase in electrical features and systems in vehicles has been a positive trend for Littelfuse over the past few years and our position in this market continues to grow. Many of today’s vehicles need higher power capacity to support their electric features and performance requirements. This in turn continues to drive sales of our Masterfuse, ZCASE and other high and medium current fuses that are designed to protect these sensitive circuits. We won new high current fuse business across all geographies during the first quarter. These include a new Masterfuse program with GM in China for a line of compact vehicles and Masterfuse wins in North America for Ford and Cadillac. We also had a very nice win with Daimler in Europe for our high current ZCASE and MEGA Fuse as part of a short-term retrofit program for 1.4 million cars that will add about $5 million in incremental revenues in the back half of this year. We are making good progress in our strategy to expand our presence in Japan. During the first quarter, we won new business for a new small car platform with Mazda for our MICRO2 and MCASE+ fuses, which are the new standard for high volume vehicle circuit protection. These subminiature fuses are designed to protect more circuits while utilizing less space. As we discussed last quarter, there is increasing focus among global OEMs on 48-volt systems. This provides excellent growth opportunities for Littelfuse and we are continuing our design-in activities with customers. In sensors, we won new business with a leading Chinese manufacturer of dual bus transmissions and with a North America automaker for our seatbelt buckle sensors. Additionally, we secured a new business win with our powertrain sensor with a North American OEM that will strengthen our position in hybrid and electric vehicles. Our PolySwitch product line continues to be well received by customers, resulting in several new business wins during the quarter. Another win in Japan with Mazda is for a customized PTC for the front and rear window lift motors in the new Mazda 2. We also won new business for our low profile PTC for applications in Audi, Renault and Ford vehicles. This PTC will be sold through electronics distributors, an example is synergies between our electronics and automotive segments. One of our target markets for CVP is power distribution modules, where we secured a strategic win, new business opportunity with a global agricultural manufacturer for a sprayer platform. We are also progressing on our strategy to grow the CVP business beyond North America. Our most recent win is with a European division of an existing North American customer that produces heavy truck refrigeration systems, where our module will help manage the battery charge in the systems. Overall, we had a strong quarter of new business design wins that will support the growth of our automotive business. Despite some lower growth rates near-term, we remain confident in our long-term growth opportunities that will drive 7% to 9% organic growth in the automotive segment. Across the company, we are executing on the growth strategy outlined at our Analyst Day and gaining traction across our strategic growth areas. The examples we discussed show how we are leveraging global mega trends, including the safety of people and equipment, energy efficiency and the connected world. We have confidence we can drive double digit revenue growth and earnings per share growth to deliver significant value for our shareholders. On that note, I will turn the call back to Meenal, who will provide the outlook for the second quarter. Then we will take your questions.