Robert A. Bruggeworth
Analyst · Stephens, Inc
Thank you, Doug, and welcome, everyone. We're very pleased to report record revenue and solid financial performance highlighted by continued diversification, margin expansion and operating leverage. On a 6% sequential increase, gross margin expanded 110 basis points and operating income increased nearly 33%. This supported earnings per share of $0.12 ahead of our original guidance of $0.10 to $0.11. RFMD's markets continue to grow with the expanding demand for high-performance broadband connectivity. This is increasing our dollar content opportunities and enabling RFMD to grow generation-over-generation in the highest tier [Audio Gap] as well as in the highest volume entry phones and reference designs. In the September quarter, RFMD was very successful in expanding our dollar content in the world's leading smartphones. Looking forward, we're very well positioned to continue to expand our content not only in smartphones, but also in entry-level devices and on reference designs. For RFMD, the shift taking place in the entry-level from voice-centric 2G devices to 3G entry smartphones is doubling and even tripling our content opportunity with an even greater jump anticipated with the deployment of TD-LTE. In the highest tier smartphones, the expanding band coverage is driving up the complexity and the content opportunity for RFMD. RF components like PA duplexes, antenna switch modules, diversity switches, antenna tuners, impedance tuners, APT and ET-capable PAs and ET trackers are creating new high-growth revenue opportunities for RFMD. On top of this, carrier aggregation is expected to proliferate through all tiers of smartphones on the receive path followed in a few years by transmit carrier aggregation. Fewer industry participants are able to solve the resulting system-level challenges related to system efficiency, thermal management, solution-side and multimode-multiband complexity. This is creating new opportunities for RFMD, as our systems level expertise and our strength in envelop tracking, carrier aggregation, antenna tuning and other key competitive differentiators are enabling us to optimize the system efficiency and overall performance of our customers' devices. As a result, we see multiyear opportunities for revenue growth and diversification across customers, product categories, market segments and air standards. And we are better positioned than ever to translate this diversified growth into margin expansion and operating leverage. We are tracking on or ahead of schedule with our key gross margin drivers. Looking forward, we anticipate a fiscal year of record revenue, and we believe we are structured to deliver continued margin expansion even in a seasonally down March quarter. Next year, we anticipate another year of record revenue and continued margin expansion. Now let's look at some of our quarterly highlights by business group. In CPG, our product and technology leadership is helping us to drive diversified growth across customers, market segments and product categories. As I indicated earlier, we were very successful during the quarter in expanding our content in some of the world's leading smartphones. As an example, we won multiple antenna tuners, an antenna switch module and an LTE pad earning RFMD the distinction of being the only supplier to deliver this customer all the critical building blocks of RF functionality, encompassing switching, tuning, amplification and filtering. We also launched multiple new components incorporating our unique ET and APT technologies. We are engaged with multiple channel partners in support of upcoming smartphone, tablet and ultra-book launches, and we expect strong growth of our APT- and ET-capable PAs and our ET power management solutions. RFMD offers the industry's most comprehensive ET product portfolio. And RFMD is the only PA supplier to have co-architected ET PAs with ET power management ICs or PMICs. This yields significant improvement and system efficiency not only when our components operate as a set, but also when our ET PAs are mated with third party ET PMICs. We are already seeing the competitive field narrow around ET, as a result of the complexity and the requirements for customer and channel partner collaboration. In the entry tier, we enjoyed broad customer adoption of our new CMOS PAs extending our leadership in that segment and supporting our margin expansion goals for our 2G product portfolio. In the market served by our Multi-Market Products Group, or MPG, we enjoyed broad representation across high-performance WiFi, wireless infrastructure, broadband networks and a diversified set of other Hi-Rel and specialized communication equipment markets. Our WiFi products grew 49% year-over-year across a broad range of mobile and CPE applications, including routers, access points and set-top boxes. Compared to last year, MPG total revenue grew 12%, demonstrating the stable nature of MPG's industrial and communications end markets. Looked at from a very high level, RFMD is executing on a strategy of product and technology leadership and delivering diversified revenue growth, margin expansion and operating leverage. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Dean.