Robert Bruggeworth
Analyst · Harsh Kumar from Piper Sandler
Thanks, Doug, and welcome, everyone, to our call. Qorvo delivered solid operating performance during our fiscal second quarter. I will cover the business strategy driving these results as well as restructuring actions we are taking to enhance profitability and quarterly strategic achievements. After that, Grant will discuss the financials. Qorvo is sharply focused on our highest performing businesses and we regularly evaluate each of our investment areas. We have divested or exited businesses that do not meet our financial or strategic objectives, and we continue to do so. We are restructuring CSG to increase our focus on our top opportunities and improve profitability. We are narrowing our focus in ultra-wideband opportunities to automotive, industrial and enterprise markets where customer pull for our technologies is increasing and we are reducing our spend related to mobile and consumer applications, which are more fragmented today. We have consolidated our CSG organizational structure to reflect this increased focus. These actions coupled with associated cuts and corporate support functions are expected to reduce operating expenses by approximately $70 million per year in fiscal 2027. In ACG, we're driving a richer mix toward premium and flagship smartphone tiers as we reduce exposure to lower-margin mass tier Android. Our pricing and portfolio actions are ahead of expectations and now we anticipate lower margin Android revenue to decline by roughly $200 million this fiscal year and by more than $200 million next year. This disciplined approach is improving ACG's profitability as we concentrate on higher-value 5G RF content for premium and flagship smartphones that demand more advanced RF performance. Within our factory network, we are also executing on cost and productivity initiatives to reduce capital intensity and structurally enhance gross margin. Our manufacturing strategy is to internally produce the most differentiated elements of our products, geographically aligned production with customers and suppliers and leverage the scale, capabilities and cost effectiveness of our outsourced partners. Over 2/3 of Qorvo's production costs are external. This includes procured raw materials, wafers purchased from external foundries as well as packaging, assembly and test operations. Prior actions to optimize our global operations include the sale of our factories in Beijing and Dezhou, China. And the transition of our GaAs wafer production from North Carolina to Oregon. We are on track to close our facility in Costa Rica and transition to external partners. We have begun the process of transferring SAW filter production to our Richardson, Texas, and we are on track to shut down the North Carolina facility once the transfer is complete. This positions our factory footprint strategically to manufacture GaAs, GaN, BAW, SAW and advanced multi-chip modules, all onshore in the United States. This is critical to D&A customers and increasingly a strategic differentiator to customers in other markets. Turning to our quarterly highlights. In ACG, we supported a seasonal ramp during the quarter at our largest customer. We are benefiting from strong unit volumes across existing platforms and greater than 10% year-over-year content growth on the ramping platform. We grew across each of our four primary product categories we supply to our largest customer. They include antenna tuners, high-performance filters and switches, integrated modules and envelope tracking power management. Within the Android ecosystem, revenue declined sequentially as expected. At our largest Android customer, we supported their second half flagship launch with a broad set of solutions. In China, ACG sales to China-based Android OEMs were approximately $65 million versus just under $100 million in the prior quarter. In HPA, we supported a broad range of mission-critical D&A applications, including land, sea, air and space radar systems, drones, electronic warfare, missile defense and military and commercial satellite communications. Our leading-edge beam forming technology is helping to modernize defense platforms and satellite terminals and we are leveraging our advanced capabilities and scale in filtering and RF power to counter evolving enemy jamming capabilities. We expect double-digit year-over-year growth in defense and aerospace markets driven by new platforms, upgrade cycles, RF content and increases in U.S. and allied defense spending. Qorvo is a strategic supplier to the U.S. government and to U.S. primes, and we enjoy broad exposure to RF content growth opportunities and critical programs such as the proposed Golden Dome multilayer defense system. Outside the U.S., Qorvo is also a beneficiary of increased EU and allied defense spending. In power management, we supported the launch of a popular smartwatch that earned media coverage for its broad set of features, including superior fast charging capabilities. We are also a market leader in PMICs for the solid-state drive market and see increasing tailwinds in the data center portion of our business. We are leveraging the performance advantages of our PMIC and motor control portfolio to expand content in AESA radars, drones, enterprise and AI data centers, smartphones and wearables. In infrastructure markets, Qorvo is benefiting with the industry's transition to DOCSIS 4.0 where Qorvo is a leading supplier of broadband amplifiers. There also continues to be solid demand for our base station small signal devices. In CSG, we're collaborating with a large automotive Tier 1 to scale ultra-wideband use cases, and our lead program is on track to ramp early next year. We are also supplying ultra-wideband solutions to Tier 1 equipment manufacturers for WiFi 7 network access points with ultra-wideband integrated into network access points, high-density venues can achieve ultra-precision location awareness. Locations include factories, warehouses, corporate campuses, hospitals, stadiums and transportation centers. Key applications include indoor navigation, occupancy sensing, asset tracking and touchless fare transactions. In addition to ultra-wideband, the content opportunity for Qorvo and these access points also includes WiFi front-end and filtering solutions. WiFi 7 is being adopted broadly given its performance advantages in throughput, latency, efficiency and network capacity and Qorvo is supporting broad adoption across routers, mesh networks and client devices. We are also collaborating with market-leading chipset providers to support the development of WiFi 8 and delivered first samples in the September quarter. Looking across our operating segments. In ACG, we're investing to expand our content opportunity with our largest customer, while continuing to serve Android's premium and flagship tiers. In HPA, we're investing to grow our satellite communications defense and aerospace and power management businesses and maintain leadership in infrastructure markets. In CSG, we are targeting growth in network access points and diversification in markets including automotive, enterprise and industrial. And with that, I'll turn it over to Grant.