Todd DeBonis
Analyst · ROTH MKM. Please go ahead
Thank you, Brett and good afternoon and welcome to everyone joining us on today’s call. Consistent with preliminary third quarter revenue we announced in early October, we had solid third quarter results with all financial metrics coming in, at or better than the midpoint of guidance. Total revenue increased 18% sequentially driven by record quarterly revenue in our mobile business, as well as seasonally stronger demand in the home and entertainment enterprise market. As planned during the quarter, we began passing through previously absorbed supplier across our end markets, which contributed to gross margin expanding 260 basis points sequentially. We also successfully managed OpEx for the quarter especially given the significant number of product and ecosystem initiatives we currently have underway to support future growth. Turning to our end markets, mobile revenue increased 20% sequentially and 37% year-over-year, achieving new quarterly record and contributing a record 52% of total revenue. During the quarter, we received positive responses to our newly introduced IRX Gaming Experience branding and certification program. The launch of the first IRX certified smartphone models were well received by the market with demand for these models exceeding customers’ expected unit volumes. Among these were two new smartphones that had just been pre-announced and which we previewed on our previous conference call. As a reminder, these were Xiaomi’s Redmi K60 Ultra and the OnePlus Ace 2 Pro. Both of these premium smartphones incorporate Pixelworks’ X7 visual processor and have contributed to our recent revenue growth. Also launched during the quarter incorporating both our X7 visual processor and IRX certification was the Realme GT5 smartphone. Built on Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Generation 2 platform, the Realme GT5 features a 6.74-inch flat display with narrow bezels, supporting up to 144 hertz refresh rate and 2K dimming. With its integration of our X7 processor, this phone leverages all of Pixelworks’ core visual processing technology, including our ultra-low latency motion engine, low power super resolution, and always-on HDR, resulting in enhanced visual performance and optimized picture quality for both gaming and video content. As part of our ongoing strategic initiatives to facilitate a cooperative mobile gaming ecosystem, we recently disclosed our latest collaborations with 2 of the world’s largest mobile game studios. In August, we announced Perfect World Games had incorporated the Pixelworks’ Rendering Accelerator SDK in the mobile game Persona 5: The Phantom X, more commonly referred to as P5X. Then in September, we announced our partnership with NetEase Games Studio, Thunder Fire Business Group. And the integration of [Technical Difficulty] release of Revolution Mobile, based upon the original flagship game Revolution. When played on a smartphone equipped with one of the X7 series visual processors, the integration of our SDK Rendering Accelerator serves as a connecting bridge, enabling these games to be played at the displays full resolution [Technical Difficulty] 120 frames per second while significantly lowering system power over native rendering. More recently, in October, we completed two notable milestones with the formal launch of our latest X7 Gen 2 mobile visual processor, which we unveiled Pixelworks’ hosted mobile visual computing event in Shenzhen, China. In addition to being an opportunity to promote the launch of our latest mobile visual processor, the event itself was centered around what we believe to be the future of mobile visual processing and advanced mobile gaming. Endorsing and adding [Technical Difficulty] the Vice President of Perfect World Games was a keynote speaker. This was followed by customer acknowledgments and then members of the Pixelworks team presenting the benefits of our ecosystem-based distributed processing architecture. Attendees of this inaugural event also had the opportunity to experience live demos of 5 announced IRX certified mobile games. With regards to our new X7 Gen 2, this latest visual processor takes picture quality to a new level. In order to achieve this performance, we incorporated newly internally developed AI based [Technical Difficulty] that utilizes our self-developed neural network processing. Our X7 Gen 2 enables more accurate upscaling and rendering of gaming content while maintaining power efficiency. The overall feature set of our new Gen 2 processor is different from the X7 predecessor. However, both chips incorporate Pixelworks’ industry-leading ultra-low latency MotionEngine, MEMC, as well as other core visual and picture quality enhancement capabilities. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter and into next year, there are three primary drivers that underpin our current expectations for sustained year-over-year growth in mobile. The first is to quickly scale the growth of the gaming ecosystem that we’ve established with leading mobile gaming studios. We’re working with new and existing studios and are targeting a 400% increase in announced games by the end of 2024. [Technical Difficulty] launch of our IRX gaming brand and certification, which is designed to increase awareness as well as simplify the evaluation and purchase decision of consumer gamers, Pixelworks is positioned to drive expanded adoption of our mobile visual processing solutions. The second growth driver for mobile is our expanded product portfolio and roadmap. Our new X7 Gen 2 visual processor when combined with Pixelworks rendering Accelerator SDK provides a unique value proposition in the form of rendering efficiency and superior cinematic gaming experience. The first production volume shipments are scheduled to begin this month in support of a customer’s planned phone launch in the first quarter of 2024. Lastly, another growth opportunity for our team has been focused on is the expansion within the existing Tier 1 handset customers into international models sold out. We have secured our first design on an existing customer’s planned international model that is scheduled to be launched early next year. To the extent we can leverage this win into additional international models with one or more Tier 1 customers would represent continued [Technical Difficulty] to latter half of next year. Turning to an update on TrueCut Motion platform. Our focus throughout much of this year has been securing a select group of commercial engagements to complete the initial foundation for bringing together a larger supportive ecosystem as [Technical Difficulty] an ecosystem takes time and is a dynamic process. Despite the distraction of recent Hollywood strikes for many industry executives and decision makers, we have continued to demonstrate our TrueCut Motion platform to influential creatives across the filmmaking community, including a growing number of directors, cinematographers, and colors. Additionally, we’re seeing increased interest from global theatrical exhibitors with business strategy centered around delivering a premium experience. This not only includes growing demand for new premium large-format content, but also the rerelease of remastered classic and catalog tiles in superior formats. With this push towards premium experiences featuring higher resolution and HDR content, there is strong and growing acceptance with the adoption of cinematic high frame rate is [Technical Difficulty] theatrical and home entertainment content without undesirable artifacts. Next, in our Home and Enterprise business, which as a reminder now predominantly consists of our visual processor SoCs for the digital projector market. Revenue increased sequentially as expected, primarily reflecting typical positive seasonality for the projector business and their order shipments in the third quarter. Although the sequential uptick in demand is an encouraging indication of normalization, the broader projector market is continuing to work through an inventory correction in response to more subdued end demand and macro uncertainty. Following the industry’s extended period of supply constraints, projector OEMs are continuing to adjust their build forecast and buffer inventories to reconcile previous supply and demand imbalances. Feedback from customers just going to normalize. However, it will be likely next year before the industry achieves a more sustainable balance between supply and demand. While speaking about supply chain, I want to briefly highlight the recent recognition we received from our largest projector customer, in September, Pixelworks with its Supplier of the Year Award for their fiscal 2022. Similar to many other companies, Epson was confronted with shortages of key components across various product lines and Pixelworks was the only vendor that was able to fully support Epson’s demand to [Technical Difficulty]. Also notable, Pixelworks was the only supplier across all of Epson’s product lines to receive this award. This is a true testament to the contributed performance and dedication of our entire team, including our operational, sales, and technical support teams. Separately, multiyear co-development project with the same customer continues to progress well. We remain on track to achieve conditional acceptance of our next-generation SoC by year-end. Upon completion of this development milestone, we expect to recognize the final milestone as an R&D credit, which will reduce our reported OpEx in the fourth quarter. Following the planned delivery of production samples early next year, the new SoC will go into volume production in the second half of 2024. Shifting to an update on our Pixelworks’ Shanghai subsidiary [Technical Difficulty]. We are now in the final preparation and tutoring process that is required before an application before listing can be filed. Getting to where we are today has taken roughly 2 years and countless hours of hard work by numerous members of our team. With respect to the larger Pixelworks organization and our Shanghai subsidiary being ready, we believe we are effectively there. As with any IPO on a major exchange, underlying market conditions play an important role in their ultimate timing. Given the current environment for technology IPOs in China, we are closely monitoring market conditions sponsor CITIC Securities. While a definitive decision has not yet been made to the respect of the timing for filing an application to list, our continued plan is to pursue a local listing of our Pixelworks Shanghai subsidiary when we believe market conditions are supportive. In closing, despite recently heightened macro uncertainty, including indications of weaker global demand and a slower ongoing recovery in China, we remain confident about our near-term outlook for sustained growth, especially in our mobile business. Specific to the fourth quarter, our current order backlog [Technical Difficulty] invisible visual processors fully support achieving continued double-digit sequential growth in mobile while also returning to solid year-over-year top line growth. Even with mobile poised to continue to become an increasing percentage of our overall business, we remain committed to and [Technical Difficulty] the next several quarters. Overall, our team continues to execute well on strategic initiatives, which have been a key to enabling our renewed growth during a broadly challenging environment. I am pleased with the recent achievement [Technical Difficulty] all important milestones as well as our expectations to close out the year with a strong fourth quarter. With that, I’ll hand the call to Haley to review the financials and provide our fourth quarter guidance.