Earnings Labs

Silicon Laboratories Inc. (SLAB)

Q1 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 29, 2009

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome and thank you for standing by and for joining the Silicon Laboratories First Quarter Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Today's conference is being recorded. (Operator instructions) I will now turn the meeting over to your first speaker, Ms. Shannon Pleasant. Thank you, ma'am. You may begin.

Shannon Pleasant

Management

Thank you. Good morning. This is Shannon Pleasant, Director of Corporate Communications for Silicon Laboratories. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the Company's financial results. The financial press release, reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures and other financial measurements, tables are now available on the investor page of our Web site at www.silabs.com. This call is being simulcast and will be archived on our Web site. There will also be a telephone replay available approximately one hour after the completion of the call at 866-415-2341. I am joined today by Necip Sayiner, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bill Bock, Chief Financial Officer, and Paul Walsh, Chief Accounting Officer. We will discuss our financial results and review our business activities for the quarter. We will have a question-and-answer session following the presentation. Before we begin let me comment regarding the Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our comments and presentation today will include forward-looking statements or projections that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. We base these forward-looking statements on information available to us as of the date of this conference call. This information will likely change over time. By discussing our current perception of our market and the future performance of Silicon Laboratories and our products today we are not undertaking an obligation to provide updates in the future. There are a variety of factors that we may not be able to accurately predict or control and could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. We encourage you to review our SEC filings including the Form 10-Q we anticipate will be filed this week that identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Also, the non-GAAP financial measurements which are discussed today are not intended to replace the presentation of Silicon Laboratories GAAP financial results. We are providing this information because it may enable investors for meaningful comparisons of operating results and will clearly highlight the results core ongoing operation. I would now like to turn the call over to Silicon Laboratories, Chief Financial Officer, Bill Bock.

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

I am very pleased to report stronger than anticipated performance for the quarter. With revenue of 83.7 million, we posted only a 16% sequential decline versus our original expectation of down 20% to 25%. This was due to steadily improving order patterns throughout the quarter. In our previous earnings call, we predicted that Q1 would be a revenue trough for Silicon Labs. Our confidence in that guidance has increased considerably as we now expect a solid sequential revenue improvement in the second quarter. Let me first cover the Q1 GAAP results. These results include approximately $10 million in non-cash stock compensation charges and $800,000 of severance and other related costs. We are very pleased to have remained profitable on a GAAP basis in the period. First quarter GAAP gross margin was flat to the fourth quarter at 60.5% of revenue. R&D investment for the period declined to 26.1 million. SG&A also declined to 23.4 million. Other income principally interest income on invested cash was under $1 million. GAAP diluted earnings per share therefore was $0.01 significantly better than anticipated. Cash flow from operations was nearly $12 million. Turning to our non-GAAP results, as expected, we were able to sustain gross margin within our target range, even with the sequentially lower volumes. On revenue of 83.7 million, non-GAAP gross margin was a solid 61%. We expect to maintain gross margin performance within our 60% to 62% range in the second quarter. Operating expenses were down meaningfully to 38.9 million, a 6% sequential decline. The cost containment actions we initiated last year all contributed, including the closure of a design center, the suspension of salary increases, and the elimination of discretionary spending. We will maintain this cost structure going forward managing to relatively flat headcount and with aggressive controls. However, second quarter…

Necip Sayiner

President

Good morning, everyone. With the first quarter behind us, we are feeling good about our business even in light of what we recognize is a very weak global economy. As Bill mentioned, we see Q1 as the cyclical bottom. We believe that the 26% peak-to-trough decline we experienced compares favorably to almost all of our peers. This combined with our ability throughout the period to hold margins sustain our profitability, and generate cash puts us in a select group of companies well equipped to outperform this year. The quarter was better than expected as the inventory contraction that began in Q4 came to an end and order patterns steadily improved. We also benefited from increasing penetration at large customers who are gaining share in their respective markets. Two examples include Samsung which represented greater than 10% of our revenue during the quarter and Huawei which entered our top five lists during the quarter. We have a strong relationship with Samsung and we are supplying product for a growing number of their product lines including handset, portable audio, home stereo, boxes, set up box and most recently television. Our video demodulator ramp aggressively had pass on in Q1 for their European TV models. We also benefited from Samsung's increase market share intense. At Huawei, we have established grow reduction across their communications platforms with our ProSLIC's timing product, FM receivers, and MCUs and we expect to add isolators to the list in Q2. These market share gains across a variety of products and customers in good health have been a strong contributor to our better than industry performance. In Q1 our broad-based products grew to almost 30% of revenue. RF and Access represented about a third of the business respectively and mature products about 5%. Starting with RF, which includes our…

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) We have a question from Craig Berger with FBR. Your line is open. Craig Berger – FBR: Hey, guys, phenomenal job. Wow! I guess as we look to the second quarter obviously you guys are ramping a lot. Is that – obviously you've got a lot of product cycle drivers, but apart from that I mean are we still in an industry burn in inventory burn situation as you look out there? Are you shipping in line with what you think end consumption trends are as of the second quarter guidance or is there more catch up to be had going forward?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

From what we see our customers the inventory burn has come to an end. And by and large we believe we are now tracking to end user consumption. There are a couple of exceptions to that, one of them being the PND market. That still has some inventory and we don't expect that segment to recover fully until Q3, but in general I would say the inventory contraction is largely behind us. Craig Berger – FBR: And just as a follow-up on the audio business, can you help us understand how big handset is versus how big some of the other components are, maybe what the contribution is from your new AM/FM tuner, how you see that playing out. I guess I am trying to understand the sustainability of that given the various moving pieces in that business. Thank you.

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

So the handsets represented roughly two-thirds of the audio revenue in the quarter. As I indicated we believe we have gained some market share in the quarter. Our products higher value products continue to see good adoption cross the customer base. We benefited from Samsung's success in the quarter as they shipped more low-end phones to regions like India, South America and China. We're seeing recovery in handsets in latter part of the quarter, particularly in March. I think all of the advantages that I've given you the examples of during the prepared remarks, continue to support us hanging on to our share. And in some instances as we have done in Q1, expand our share. The really positive new side we've seen in the quarter in terms of design win have come from the consumer audio segment. While we have grown our AM/FM revenue modestly in the quarter we are seeing a significant increase in design wins for our AM/FM products particularly in the Chinese consumer audio market, our product has simply become the solution of choice. Craig Berger – FBR: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Romit Shah from Barclays. Your line is open. Romit Shah – Barclays: Thanks for taking my question. Bill, did you guys see any impact from – in just in terms of wafer pricing, any impact on your margins from better wafer pricing?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

Romit, not particularly. I think that we have seen relatively stable pricing dynamics, both in terms of ASPs with our customers, and in terms of the costs that we are obtaining from our vendors. So the gross margin was not impacted by anything unusual in that regard. Romit Shah – Barclays: Okay. And then just back to broadcast either historically you have said that handsets would account for a smaller percentage of that business, can you just talk about what – why combo solutions haven't had a bigger impact on that piece of your business to-date? And is it still your expectation that over time handsets will comprise a smaller piece of the total broadcast business?

Necip Sayiner

President

Clearly, the handset business flow is holding up very well. We continue to gain share with our customers and tax rate for FM continues to inch up. I think the story in terms of the fraction of revenues we drive from handsets versus non-handset applications at this juncture is simply due to the really weak consumer demand for portable media players, navigation devices and so on. So it's not an indication of any lack of momentum in the consumer audio business quite to the contrary. It's just the depiction of the current demand environment and increasing same for FM solution in handsets. Romit Shah – Barclays: Got you. And then just last question from me. Are you comfortable at this point giving a forecast for each of the major product categories in 2009?

Necip Sayiner

President

I think we're going to defer that to the media call, Romit. As Bill indicated earlier, the visibility for the second half is still limited and we are not at the point provide full year targets for product line. Romit Shah – Barclays: Sure. Understand. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Terence Whalen with Citigroup. Your line is open. Terence Whalen – Citigroup: Great. Thanks for taking my question. This question is with regard to the strength that you expect for the second quarter, I think at the midpoint you are guiding roughly up 13% sequentially. Is that sequential growth evenly divided between OEMs and distribution or would you expect one type of customer to grow more than the other in that guidance? Thanks.

Necip Sayiner

President

Just as a reminder, we recognize revenue as the product sales through the distribution channel. So the large customers that we serve direct have seen a relative strength in the first quarter. I expect some of that strength from the large customers to continue into the second quarter. However, the – I think given how low the revenue was from our distribution channel in 1Q, I would expect that percentage to go slightly up in the second quarter on a relative basis. Terence Whalen – Citigroup: Great. And then as a very quick follow-up it sounds like you've kept headcount flat and expect to keep it flat in the out quarter. If this growth kind of continues to maintain momentum, at what point do you really have to start adding to either your design groups or your sales force? Thank you. That's it.

Necip Sayiner

President

I think we are going to make incremental investments to the business when we gain some confidence that the growth trajectory is sustainable. So I think we are going to continue to get data points as we go through this year. And if we start seeing that type of growth continuing to the second quarter then we will be in a position to add some headcount.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Randy Abrams with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Randy Abrams – Credit Suisse: Yes. Hi, good morning. Want to ask a bit more on the gross margins, with the revenue coming back, is there any potential to absorb some of the fixed cost just a little bit and get gross margins back to the high end? And you talked a bit about supply constraints, just wanted to understand where that's coming from and what products and just how meaningful the supply constraints are?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

So Randy, there certainly our benefits with increasing volume to our gross margin profile. We do however have a number of new product ramps with start up costs underway that we suspect will not allow us to exceed our target range as we did a couple of quarters last year. So our guidance for 2Q is that we will be in the 60% to 62% range and we feel pretty comfortable with that. I think that opportunity going forward is going to be a function of, how does second half revenue play out. And as Necip commented, we are still lacking visibility into the second half. And we do expect the second half will be stronger than the first half of the year, but we really just don't see yet how that will play out quarter by quarter. Randy Abrams – Credit Suisse: I guess the supply constraints. Then my follow-up was on the OpEx looking to second quarter maybe the split between R&D and SG&A with the higher tape outs and is that higher tape out level an expectation that continues or could R&D actually take a little bit of a step down once you get through the tape outs?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

So let me hit the supply constraint question. I think that this is a function of the increased demand we saw during the quarter and is not unusual. We simply had planned for a lower level of demand and as it picked up inevidently [ph] we ran into some constraints on unique product lines and we expect to work through all of those during the course of 2Q. On the operating expenses going into the second quarter, yes, I think you should expect to see the R&D line will increase more than the SG&A line because that is where all of the tape out activity occurs. This is typically a lumpy expense for us. And so while we should see more of that cost in 2Q it's not necessarily the case if that would continue on a run rate basis. Randy Abrams – Credit Suisse: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Suji De Silva with Kaufman Brothers. Your line is open. Suji De Silva – Kaufman Brothers: Good morning, guys. Nice job on the quarter. You talked about a little bit about the micro control business and visibility broadly. I think you talked about China consumer being strong but can you talk about end market wise what you saw from the recovery there?

Necip Sayiner

President

I think geographically, Asia is the best among our regions while we do see continued caution among our greater China customers. We also are making a lot of progress with large customers in China and rest of Asia. I think Europe is also doing well, and in the second quarter, we are going to see broad participation geographically to the sequential revenue increase. In terms of segments we do expect to see increased revenue in Access business from set top box customers and customer premises – equipment segment. We expect to see improvement in handsets. We are going to see a notable increase in our video revenues as well as the consumer audio segment and I expect the revenue increase in our broad based business is power, timing and MCU to be broad across existing large customers and driven to some extent with newer design wins. Suji De Silva – Kaufman Brothers: Okay. And then on the growth areas, I know you talked about second half visibility being little weak, still challenging, but across video, say, power and timing maybe very good growth areas which one do you think has the best potential to contribute to the second half? Thanks.

Necip Sayiner

President

Well, I mean first provide the following perspective to you. When we look at some of these growth engines, take video, take short-range wireless, take power, take timing, all of these product lines are now running at the higher run rate than they did just six months ago. So the revenues from each of these product lines in the first half of '09 is going to exceed that of second half of '08. So, you can see even in a depressed economic environment we are able to grow these product lines. So we are highly confident that second half for those products are going to be better than first half, notably. All of these are really being driven by new product cycles and new design wins. I can't point to any one of those product lines as the driver. I think our message is that the growth that we are going to see throughout 2009 is going to be supported by multiple product lines. Suji De Silva – Kaufman Brothers: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Brendan Furlong with Miller Tabak. Your line is open. Brendan Furlong – Miller Tabak: Good morning. Thank you very much. The last questioner got most of my questions, but couple of quick ones. GAAP taxes for the rest of the year I don't know if you addressed that if you could quickly tell me what you think there.

Necip Sayiner

President

So we would expect that the GAAP tax rate through the remainder of the year will be in the mid-30s. On a pro forma basis we expect around 20%. Brendan Furlong – Miller Tabak: Perfect. Thank you. And then I guess the only follow-up to the previous questioner was on the consumer audio business which you reference in your model out design wins, when you are you expecting the, I guess a more significant revenue contribution from that sub segment of the RF business? Thanks.

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

I think the portion of revenues we drive from consumer audio is going to increase steadily throughout the year. I alluded to a small increase in our AM/FM revenue in the quarter, for example. These are design wins that we won back months ago and that has been a significant increase in the design win in terms of numbers and revenue contributions in the last nine months to twelve months and the driver for that has been particularly performance in that space. Couple of large notable customers, for example, have decided to split their business a while back between us and other suppliers and now have come back to using us 100% primarily driven by the higher level of performance that we are providing to their products. Brendan Furlong – Miller Tabak: Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Sandy Harrison with Signal Hill. Your line is open. Sandy Harrison – Signal Hill: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. So the question I had, Necip is you were talking quite a bit about market share gains and it sounds like relatively all of your products you're expecting market share gains in, if you could maybe spend a second and talk about the competitive environment within the segments and what it is that sort of gives you the comfort that you should be in confidence that you guys should be able to accomplish this, when many of the other conversations and conference calls folks are talking about the same activity.

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

Okay. In Access business I think we are positioned very well against some of our competitors who are not in great financial health. And I think some customers are taking note of that fact and looking at our offerings more closely than they may have in the past. And that resulted in some net share gains in our embedded modem business and we see a lot of opportunity with our voice product especially with more recent product introductions. I think audio I covered in about handsets and consumer audio, many good trends there. With video we are ramping very aggressively, this is just driven by a new product cycle. In addition to our lead customer, we are also engaged with a number of other customers that we had design in with that I expect to see some revenue contribution from in coming periods. Short-range wireless, we are enjoying very good reception in a couple of segments. One is the metering sector where we are engaged with some tier one gas and water meter customers. And most of those wins are also bundled with our micro controllers. Another good area for our short-range wireless products is security, and we see bundling opportunities there with our microcontrollers and modems, so an excellent fit for our products for that customer base. So it's just a sheer amount of design wins that I'm seeing across the Board with all the product lines what gives us confidence that we will continue to see share gain throughout the year. Sandy Harrison – Signal Hill: And just my follow up, per your prior comments on audio, is it safe to conclude that I think in the past you guys have maybe taken some criticism for not making as integrated a part for the handset in the beginning and in fact with your strength this quarter coming from the lower enhanced set. Is that an acknowledgment of your strategy versus some of the other competitors out there who are trying to do everything for everyone?

Necip Sayiner

President

Well, I think we always recognize that there will be segmentation in the handset market, and the low end will always favor standalone solutions. So we have – our strategy was based on providing a low cost, good performance solution in that space rather than making investments in areas that are not close to our core competencies. Sandy Harrison – Signal Hill: Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Cody Acree from Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open. Cody Acree – Stifel Nicolaus: Thanks guys and Congrats. Can I just follow up there on Sandy's question? As you talked about that low end of standalone tuning part, how – is there a window, is there a time frame where before combo parts start to move down into those lower end, the cost start to become more attractive and it decreases the window of your opportunity there and then you have to move more into the consumer products?

Necip Sayiner

President

Well, I think the long-term integration path for FM tuners in that space is going to be into single tip solutions rather than involving a blue tooth combo, for example. I don't think those low end phones need or can afford that type of connectivity function. So I don't see however low the price may get, I don't see blue tooth really seeping into the low end phones that we are talking about. The bill of materials for those phones is below $15, getting to be below $10. So cost is everything-and we have seen that over the last several quarters in terms of the price pressure that we are seeing for our product and the things that we have to do to remain competitive in that space. So to answer your question directly I continue to see a good opportunity for us in the low end segment. As a matter of fact, I think the TAM for standalone products in the near-term is going to increase. Cody Acree – Stifel Nicolaus: You mentioned penetration rate, attach rates, do you have an estimate for about where those stand today and then what those might look like through the remainder of the year?

Necip Sayiner

President

Our best guess today is that tax rate is just north of 40% and has been inching up. Cody Acree – Stifel Nicolaus: Any reason why that accelerates or does it that, that path just continues at a more steady rate?

Necip Sayiner

President

I don't expect it to accelerate. I expect it to inch up at a steady rate. When we talk to our large customers, they continue to tell us that they are putting that functionality into a majority of their models. And more often than not that corresponds to an even higher percentage of phones that they ship. Cody Acree – Stifel Nicolaus: Great. And then lastly, Bill, you had talked a little bit about maybe the lumpiness of your operating expenses. Can you give a little color maybe beyond the second quarter if the recovery continues as we are looking into the second half with revenue, what is a more normal spending trend? When do you start to let your foot off that brake?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

So I will follow up with Necip's earlier comments. For the present, we are going to continue to manage the operating expense category as we did in Q1 effectively, a flat headcount assumption and very tight expense controls. The variance that you see between first quarter and second quarter really amounts to variable comp on higher revenues and this tape out expense. Going into the second half of year, I think we will continue with this posture and as our confidence grows we see growth returning to the business and the industry in general we will relax our constraints on hiring and perhaps add some engineering resources late in the year. But for the time being, we are going to stay very close to the best with the operating expenses. Cody Acree – Stifel Nicolaus: Very good. Congrats, guys.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Gus Richard with Piper Jaffray. Your line is open. Gus Richard – Piper Jaffray: Yes. Thanks for taking my question. Just a number of questions on the video side of the business. Can you talk a little bit about the tuner opportunity, when you see that cutting in and how much that will increase your TAM in that market?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

Well, TV tuner opportunity is very exciting for us. This is a market that is growing and is an inflection point in terms of being open to adopting a silicon-based solution. I think the hurdles in the past have been about being able to combine performance and cost and I think with our product offering we have been able to get over that hurdle. So far the feedback from the customers is healthy and the characterization effort for our product continues in our lab. Everything is looking good, we are engaged in developing the firmware with our customers for their application, addressing all of their application issues and competing with – competing for 2010 models at this point. What I see from a design cycle perspective with TV customers is somewhat long 12 months to 18 month is what we are seeing particularly in this case where they're adopting a new technology in terms of silicon tuner. So I would not expect to see any meaningful revenue before mid-2010. Gus Richard – Piper Jaffray: Okay. And TAM for that would that be hundreds of millions of dollar, how big is that market just in total opportunity?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

I think hundreds of millions of dollars is right. Basically, we are talking about digital TVs that are shipping hybrid TVs along with the analog TV functionality shipping in the hundreds of millions. The TV tuner that we have developed will address all over the world. So it is not a region specific. We can go after the entire TAM. And we are talking about multi-dollar ASPs for the solution. So several hundred million dollar opportunity is right. Gus Richard – Piper Jaffray: Okay. And then just based on your commentary on the ramp, on the demodulator, is it reasonable to assume that the revenue on that product could get in $10 million or so for the year?

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

That's not an unreasonable expectation. Gus Richard – Piper Jaffray: Perfect. Thanks.

Bill Bock

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for your questions. I will now turn the call back over to Shannon Pleasant for closing remarks.

Shannon Pleasant

Management

Alright. Thank you, Amy. Thank you all for joining us today. This now concludes our call.