Ron Glibbery
Analyst · K. Liu & Company. Please proceed
Thank you, Jim. Good afternoon and welcome. We appreciate you joining us on today's call. I'm pleased to report that our third quarter financial results marked a significant improvement over the prior quarter with total revenue increasing 87% sequentially and 36% year-over-year. Although our mmWave business continued to reflect lower customer demand due to the ongoing industry inventory correction, during the quarter, we commercially commenced initial shipments against the large order backlog associated with the end-of-life for our memory IC products. This increased revenue contribution from our higher-margin memory IC products, combined with the sequential increase in sales of our mmWave products drove solid gross profit expansion as well as improvement in our bottom-line results. Looking at Slide 4, I want to begin with an update on the end-of-life of our memory IC products given the significant positive contribution to our third quarter results. As a reminder, in May of this year, we notified our memory customers of the end-of-life after learning that our foundry partner would be discontinuing the manufacturing process used to fabricate wafers for these products. The response from customers thus far has been very strong. Today, we received purchase orders for last time buyers from multiple customers totaling $11.3 million. We commenced initial shipments in the third quarter resulting in revenue of $3.1 million, with the majority of these initial order shipments being fulfilled from existing inventory. Our remaining backlog of these end-of-life orders was approximately $8.2 million at quarter-end and we also have an additional $2.5 million of backlog associated with production orders. Based on current manufacturing schedules at our foundry partner, we expect to complete shipments in fulfillment of all outstanding backlog by second half of 2024. The deadline for customers to place final purchase orders for end-of-life products is late December of this year and we continue to expect total EOL orders to amount between $15 million to $20 million. Importantly, these collective end-of-life orders and shipments are anticipated to contribute meaningful revenue and cash flow over the next several quarters as we continue to focus on expanding the customer base for mmWave products. Turning to Slide 5 and an update on our mmWave business. With demand from our largest existing customers continue to be impacted by the ongoing industry inventory correction, a large portion of our team's energy and efforts have been centered around our engagement pipeline. Since August, we have increased the combined number of engagements from 80 to 87, primarily reflecting the series of additional new funnel opportunities. The number of active engagements as of October remained about the same. However, I want to highlight this is in part reflective of our recent decision to place a small number of previous engagements on hold and therefore, we exclude them from these metrics. As we continue to source and evaluate new potential opportunities, we are putting an even greater emphasis on prioritizing the highest quality engagements in terms of both projected economic value and anticipated time to market. We are also diligently allocating our design in engineering resources, coupled with enhancing workflow efficiencies in support of maximizing our expected near-term return on investment. As stated in the past, we view our overall pipeline as a leading indicator of progress toward a more diversified customer base and I continue to be encouraged by our expanding number of high-quality active engagements. Within our mmWave business, I'd like to highlight one of the new markets we are seeing activity in, which is aerospace and defense. mmWave provides some distinct advantages over traditional wireless technologies. mmWave delivers the standard benefits, including high data rates and low latency. However, as compared to traditional radio signals that radiate in all directions, Peraso is able to create very narrow-focused beams that are more difficult to detect. mmWave provides an inherently stealthy protocol, low probability of interception, low probability of detection and anti-jamming, all of which are quite desirable for military communications. To these ends, we recently secured our first commercial engagement for the use of our mmWave technology for millimeter-wave or military communications. We are in a customer-funded proof-of-concept stage now and we'd like to be shipping in volume in the second half of 2024. In the meantime, we engaged on other defense-oriented opportunities and we hope to be speaking to those on future conference calls. Moving to Slide 7. There continues to be strong evidence for accelerating market adoption of 60 gigahertz fixed wireless access. In the past two months, members of Peraso's team have participated in three wireless industry trade shows, all of which feature recognition of the growing momentum around 60 gigahertz and millimeter-wave solutions for fixed wireless access applications. In September, we had multiple business development and product executives attend Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas, where they showcased Peraso's latest and mmWave solutions for fixed wireless access and customer premise equipment. Also in September, Peraso's Senior Director of Product Marketing, Dr. Nadine Hatto, was invited to participate on a Q&A panel at Wi-Fi World Congress in North America. In addition to be joined on the panel by representatives from Airline and Cambium Networks, Dr. Hatto's participation served as a great opportunity to elevate awareness of the multi-gigabit performance of Peraso's mmWave solutions for 60 gigahertz fixed wireless access applications. More recently, our team hosted meetings with current and prospective customers and partners at WISPAPALOOZA Show in Las Vegas. Peraso also participated in a vendor spotlight session, which provided a unique opportunity to highlight the growing number of 60 gigahertz unlicensed wireless deployments, utilizing our solutions to enable multi-gigabit connectivity. Separately, also notable at WISPAPALOOZA was Ubiquiti significant presence given they are the leading fixed wireless access equipment vendor -- using a multi-gigabit connectivity. Separately, also notable that WISPAPALOOZA was Ubiquiti's significant presence given they are the leading fixed wireless access equipment vendor to the WISP market. In fact, Ubiquiti showcased seven different 60 gigahertz products at its booth, including its newest WavePro point-to-point 60 gigahertz radio that enables speeds of up to 3.2 gigabits per second. This increase in commercial availability of products that support multi-gigabit connectivity makes 60 gigahertz a reliable and lower cost competitive alternative to fiber. Turning to Slide 8. I want to briefly discuss another new emerging market opportunity that we're seeing and how mmWave solves the challenges faced by other technologies in dense urban environments. Take, for example, the densely concentrated centers is found in emerging markets such as India, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. There is rapidly growing demand for internet connectivity in these areas. However, the population density presents a unique set of technology challenges. First, the cost associated with deploying and then also physically securing infrastructure make fiber uneconomical and unrealistic in many of these markets. Additionally, the sheer number and density of connections contribute to significant wireless congestion interference, exceeding the capable tolerances that are suitable for Wi-Fi. Lastly, these emerging geographies frequently have less reliable electricity service, making it important for deployed equipment to sustain operation on low power sources such as solar and battery power. Inherently, mmWave provides a solution to each of these challenges. Its beam-forming capability minimizes and overcomes the density of wireless connection points, enabling more reliable and high bandwidth service. mmWave solutions can also be implemented with much lower upfront cost, making deployments more economical for service providers. Additionally, the higher power efficiency of the mmWave solutions enables longer operation on temporary power sources resulting in reduced service interruptions. During the third quarter, we formally introduced the Peraso PRM2144X as the latest addition to our prospective series of mmWave modules. Utilizing our X720 60-gigahertz chipset, the new PRM2144X incorporates 128 element phased array antenna that provides high gain and narrow beam width, making it an ideal solution for delivering reliable connectivity in dense urban environments. Looking at Slide 9, I wanted to share this updated overview of the WISPs that are currently utilizing Peraso-enabled hardware today as part of the 60 gigahertz deployments. To date, we've identified over 25 WISPs spanning 14 states in the US and at least four WISPs in Canada. Additionally, we've recently confirmed more than one planned 60 gigahertz deployment utilizing our technology outside of North America. We view this growing list of WISP deployments as further validation of both the growing market traction for 60 gigahertz technology as well as Peraso's leading position in 60 gigahertz mmWave solutions for fixed wireless access. As demonstrated on the right side of the slide, the overall trend and outlook continue to be favorable for fixed wireless access market. In addition to third-party research forecasting sustained growth of WISP subscribers over the next several years, the US Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, recently published a notice of inquiry advocating for an increase to the standard minimum benchmark for fixed broadband. As a first step, the FCC has proposed an increase from an existing 25 3 megabits per second benchmark to 120 megabits per second. Moreover, they are also soliciting comment on a potential longer-term goal of 1 gigabit per second, 500 megabits per second in the future. We believe this and other going support for gigabit connectivity will serve as strong drivers for expanded adoption of mmWave fixed wireless access. As a reminder, Peraso's existing mmWave solutions already fully support and enable multi-gigabit connectivity. In closing, we continue to believe there is a substantial market opportunity for Peraso's mmWave technology, spanning both unlicensed 60 gigahertz and licensed 5G fixed wireless access. Although, we expect the recent headwinds in inventory correction in this area of business to extend into 2024, we remain encouraged by the continued expansion of our sales engagement pipeline. We are committed to advancing these engagements for mmWave solutions in support of building a more diversified customer base and achieving sustained future revenue growth. With that, I'll turn the call back to Jim to review third quarter financials and speak to the outlook.