Earnings Labs

Semtech Corporation (SMTC)

Q4 2008 Earnings Call· Mon, Mar 10, 2008

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good Afternoon, my name is Heather and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q4 Fiscal Year 2008 Semtech Corporation’s earnings release conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone key pad. If you would like to withdraw you question, press the pound key. Thank you, Mr. German you may begin your conference.

Todd German

Management

Thank you operator. Good Afternoon ladies and gentleman and welcome to Semtech Corporation’s fiscal year 2008 Fourth Quarter Conference Call. I’m Todd German, Director of FP&A and Investor Relations. We have just released un-audited results for our fourth quarter that ended January 27th, 2008 and for the next 45 minutes or so, Mohan Maheswaran, Semtech’s President and Chief Executive Officer and Emeka Chukwu, our Chief Financial Officer will be discussing those results and answering your questions. Before I turn the call over to Emeka, I want to remind everyone of the following notices. First this call is open to all interested parties in accordance with Reg FD. If you have any questions about our future performance, or our estimates of future financial results, we will consider them now. We are unable to say if there will be another Reg FD compliant opportunity for you to ask questions before the next quarterly conference call. Second, this conference call will include forward looking statements as defined by SEC rules. Forward looking statements are statements other than historical information or statements of current condition and relate to matters such as future financial performance, future operational performance, the anticipated impact of specific items on future earnings and our plans objectives and expectations. Forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those projected. These risks and uncertainties include worldwide economic and political conditions, the timing and duration of semiconductor market upturns or downturns, demand for electronics in general, demand for the company’s product in particular and supply chain and manufacturing risks. In addition, to considering these risks and uncertainties, forward looking statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements contained in the risk factors section and elsewhere in our annual report on form 10K for the…

Emeka Chukwu

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you Todd, good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Before we get to the financials, I would like to provide you with an important update on previously disclosed federal and state derivative litigation brought with respect to the company’s past stock option practices. We are pleased to announce that during the fourth quarter we reached a tentative settlement. To cover the Morning trade component of the proposed settlement the company accrued $1.625 million net of anticipated insurance proceeds resulting in an unfavorable $0.02 impact on our fourth quarter fully diluted cap earnings per share. Our settlement had a negative impact on our fourth quarter earnings. We are pleased to put this matter behind us. We are working to document this settlement which is subject to court approval. Now moving on to our Q4 financial performance. Revenues for the fourth quarter fiscal 2008 were $78.6 million. A 35% increase from the same quarter last year and sequentially flat. The increase in year over year in revenue was driven by strength in sales of our power management product within the computing space. Strength in hand held revenues and the resurgence in sales of our power discrete products. For the year overall revenues closed off 13%. During the fourth quarter, 65% of our revenues were derived from customers in Asia. 21% came from North America and 14% from Europe. Revenues from handhelds accounted for 21% of revenue during the quarter. Wire computer accounted for 21%. Test equipment accounted for approximately 2% of revenue. Communications infrastructure accounted for 19% and industrial accounted for 37%. As expected we saw a substantial decline in our computing and handheld revenue due to seasonality. Revenues from OEM sales represented approximately 35% of total revenues for the fourth quarter. Wire distribution represented approximately 65% of total revenues. Orders in Q4…

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thank you Emeka, good afternoon everyone. I will discuss our Q4 fiscal year 2008 product group performance, our fiscal year 2008 company performance, and then discuss our Q1 fiscal year 2009 outlook. Q4 of fiscal year 2008 was another exceptional quarter for Semtech. Once again we achieved the highest revenues in any single quarter in the company’s 47 year history. Semtech achieved $78.6 million in revenues that versus Q3 represents 36% increase versus Q4 for fiscal year 2007. Non GAAP gross margin increased 55.5% and non GAAP EPS grew on an annual basis by 100% to $0.26 per valued share. We are very pleased with both our revenue and EPS performance in Q4. Demand for our protection products and our power discrete products remained relatively strong in the quarter, driven mostly by the communications and industrial segments. Now let me discuss the performance of each of our product groups in Q4. In Q4, our power management revenues declined by 5% on a sequential basis. On an annual basis, power management revenues increased by approximately 60%. Our power management business continues to make a steady return to growth. The demand in Q4 was driven mostly by the communication end market. Our power management business unit is beginning to release newer more differentiated power platforms and we expect that fiscal year ’09 will be another good year for our power business. In addition to various miniature LED driver and buck push converter product. In Q4 Semtech introduced a new family of battery chargers to the market targeted at handheld battery operated systems. This is the first battery charger family based on a new platform architecture released by Semtech in over 5 years. This new family of miniature high input voltage lithium ion charger products is now released and we will start the…

Operator

Operator

At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone key pad. We’ll pause for just a moment to install the Q&A roster. The first question comes from Craig Ellis from Citi.

Craig Ellis

Analyst · Citi

Thanks guys and congratulations on the quarter and on the fiscal year. Fist is a clarification off of comments on the last quarter’s call. You had talked about some orders softness that you had observed in the mid November timeframe, can you just walk us through the linearity that you saw in the quarter on the order side?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

In Q4 Craig, bookings were soft throughout the quarter, the booking improved modestly in January and strengthened in recent weeks I would say. Not unexpected you know as we look at December, Christmas we expect a little softness there and then early February because of Chinese New Year, softness is expected there so what’s encouraging is that the bookings are starting to get a little bit stronger and March and April are at least for us expected to be a stronger bookings period.

Craig Ellis

Analyst · Citi

That’s helpful Mohan and then a follow up on the gross Margin guidance for the fiscal first quarter, you had talked about it being down sequentially, is that fairly utilization or is there any mixed component or any pricing component in there.

Emeka Chukwu

Chief Financial Officer

Craig, this is Emeka.

Craig Ellis

Analyst · Citi

Hi Emeka.

Emeka Chukwu

Chief Financial Officer

Hi, it’s mostly the cost of utilization. We do expect that volumes manufacturing or volumes will be down in Q1 relative to our fourth quarter.

Craig Ellis

Analyst · Citi

Okay, and then lastly, staying on gross margin and thinking about the objective of getting to the midpoint of the target range by the end of the year, should we think about the companies goals being one that’s pretty linear as you go through the year or is it really more back end weighted and dependent on the sale of the new product activity that you had talked about in your prepared remarks, Mohan.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah, I think it’s probably going to be more back end Craig, mostly because we are depending on the new product platforms, you know we expect new charger platforms some of the new advanced com and sensing platforms to start to gain traction and those are what are really going to draw the increase in the gross margin in the second half.

Craig Ellis

Analyst · Citi

Thanks guys.

Operation

Analyst · Citi

The next question comes from Doug Freedman from Am Tech Research.

Doug Freedman

Analyst · Citi

Thanks for taking my questions. If you look forward Mohan, the design winds that you’re seeing, how is it going to change company’s exposure to buy in market going forward and is there any sort of geographic change in your outlook?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

I think the key changes going forward if I look at my common sensing becoming a bigger component to those platforms really take off, then I would expect industrial communications and consumer to perhaps be a little bit stronger for us. And power management, I think a little bit more consumer. Also from a regional standpoint, you know the probably won’t change that much. The consumer is usually driven out of Asia and Japan, we’ll maybe see more Japan than Taiwan but I think the mix is going to be roughly the same as what we have.

Doug Freedman

Analyst · Citi

And in the markets where you saw sort of the weakness in the quarter as far as bookings, is there, you’ve reported that you know it sounds like things are firming up a little bit is the firming that you’re seeing in the same customers that were showing the weakness or is it that you’re seeing the emergence of maybe new products or other things happening in other markets that have you more encouraged about the recent booking patterns.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah, I would say the booking is more related to existing customers and new products, the attraction that we have with new products we’re now seeing significant increase in the demand from those yet.

Doug Freedman

Analyst · Citi

Okay and then so I mean I just want to make sure I understand you. So the customers that saw weakness, are they backordering now, have they sort of worked through their inventories or?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Let me give you an example, Doug I think handheld for example in Q4 was very soft and I think it’s starting to get a little bit stronger.

Doug Freedman

Analyst · Citi

Okay very good, great thank you and you did a nice job in the execution here.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank.

Ross Seymore

Analyst · Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank

Hey guys, and congrats on the solid quarter. Mohan, you just mentioned about the handset stuff coming back and you talked a little bit about the linearity of quarters. Would you characterize them in total as being normal seasonally, worse than normal, everybody’s trying to reconcile to more of a macro view and anything you could provide versus normal seasonality or however you want to peg would be helpful.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah, I think Ross it’s kind of seasonal, I mean it’s pretty normal for this type of period in the year. I would say it’s probably a little bit softer than one would expect, but given what I talked about December being a Christmas and one wouldn’t expect strong bookings during that period and then the Chinese New year, there is, one does look for a pick up after that. I think it’s quite normal I don’t think there’s anything there that I see that surprises me yet about versus other years.

Ross Seymore

Analyst · Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank

And I don’t know if I missed it but do you mention what the lead times were, did those change at all from the 8 to 12 weeks you talked about last quarter?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

The order lead times?

Ross Seymore

Analyst · Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank

Correct.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Quarter lead times are probably coming a little bit shorter now I would say, we’re getting a little bit more visibility but not much more.

Ross Seymore

Analyst · Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank

And then you mentioned about some of the new product traction and it seems like the word consumer came up a couple times in both power management and protection. Does that in any way impact your gross margin as far as being a head wind from the kind of stereotypical view that consumer products tend to not have as high a gross margins as industrial?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well there’s two things that, one is that the biggest kind of problem we have in gross margins is really our power management business and specifically the computing element of that which is very much lower than our corporate average. And it’s my belief and I’m very confident about this that as we get many of our power products new platforms into the consumer space we can drive a higher gross margin than the computing space. It is a high as industrial communications or some of those other segments, the answer is no, but I think as a company having the balance of very good industrial base of power discretes and advanced com and sensing driving the communications sector I think it’s good for the company to have the balance of consumer as well and it’s an area that we typically or traditionally haven’t really targeted and I think it’s a good space for us to be in.

Ross Seymore

Analyst · Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank

And the last question for me with the foreign news segment that you’re going to report going forward, can you give us any rough idea of either the hierarchy of the gross margin between those or the range around the corporate average of gross margins, whatever might help us model the mix component with a little more granularity.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah, power discrete, protection and advance common sensing are at or above the corporate average. Our model is 55% or 60% so that will give you some idea of where they are. And then power is significantly below.

Ross Seymore

Analyst · Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank

Okay, great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

You next question comes from the line of Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan.

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

Yes, thank you for taking my question. On the, circling back to the lead time question, can you quantify for us what your order lead times are?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Typically 6 to 8 weeks.

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

6 to 8 weeks is typical?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah.

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

And there are in the 10 to 12 week range last quarter.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

You know I can’t recall exactly I think they were probably in the 8 to 10 week,

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

8 to 10, okay. Thanks. And then, how’s the pricing environment for Q4 and how does it look going into Q1?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

It varies by segment and product line I think typically the most price sensitive areas for us are obviously in the computing space and handheld space and in those two areas it continues to remain they remain very price sensitive very competitive areas both in power and in the protection area. And I think we plan on price erosion on a pretty consistent basis about the quarter and there’s nothing, there’s no surprise there Shawn I have to say it’s pretty consistent with what we’ve seen pull.

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

Okay, so nobody’s getting overly aggressive, over there yet, or beyond normal.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Nothing beyond normal.

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

Yeah, on the power management side, it sounds like you’re refocusing a little bit away from the computing area in the coming year. You have a lot of design winds I think you mentioned something like 800, what’s the composition of the design winds in terms of end market can you? You mentioned there’s a couple of different areas that you’re picking up a number of design windows, can you highlight those areas for us?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

The areas, we are still getting design winds in computing so the message in computing is very simple but in the power management space where we have traditionally played in de core regulators and some of the peripherals where the margins get to a point where the customer’s only real request about price we have chosen to kind of stay away from that game. That’s not where Semtech differentiates, but in all the other markets, we participate quite aggressively. And I would say that continues to be our strategy. What was the question?

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

The 800 design wins.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

The design winds are, the 800 design winds is across the board. I would say we get them in handheld. In protection a lot of the design winds are coming from computing space, handheld communications being Ethernet ports and USB ports in the handheld space. On the industrial front we get a lot of design winds from advanced common sensing platform and industrial protection requirements on the comm. side it’s more again Ethernet driven, voice over IP and [Gpon] and we are getting design winds in the consumer space in LCD TV’s and set top boxes and DV-R’s both where there are HDMI ports where there’s some power requirements etcetera.

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

Okay. Great, oh, one final one, did you have any 10% customers in the quarter?

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

No we did not.

Shawn Webster

Analyst · Shawn Webster of J.P. Morgan

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Cody Acree with Stifel Nicolaus.

Cody Acree

Analyst · Cody Acree with Stifel Nicolaus

Thanks guys. Mohan, maybe you can talk about the gross margin drivers. You gave some stratification of end market of the importance to gross margin but what do you expect over the next several quarters to be the thing to rid you to your target margin?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well I think the main thing that we, that move us moving power management margins from being where they are today to a higher point. They won’t be you know where we want them to be long term, but I think if we look at kind of a 12 month rise moving our power management margins from being well below the corporate average to closer to the corporate average is the keys. I think our advance common sensing business which can generate higher gross margins becoming a bigger portion of our company I think will be important to drive gross margin. Expansion and then our power discrete business also becoming a, continued to grow and becoming a bigger part of the company will all expand gross margins.

Cody Acree

Analyst · Cody Acree with Stifel Nicolaus

And then in the power management specific lot, over the last several quarters, where do you expect, where do you see your market say specifically in handhelds?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Did you say market share Cody?

Cody Acree

Analyst · Cody Acree with Stifel Nicolaus

Yeah market share driving some of those margin improvements.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well our market share in handheld power is very small to date so no, that isn’t going to, that isn’t significant in impacting our margin in power. The biggest chunk of power credit that drives the lower gross margin is the power space as we shift that to more consumer and more handheld frankly we can demand higher gross margin in the handheld space than we can in the computing space just because that market is moving and we have some innovative products. So for example the battery chargers that I just talked about, you know I believe that that alone will move the margins up as we start to get revenue from that.

Cody Acree

Analyst · Cody Acree with Stifel Nicolaus

Okay, fiscal ’09 a lot of work has been to drive market share in the handheld space specifically do you expect that to start to come to fruition?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah I think in the second half of fiscal year ’09 we’ll start to see the benefit of some of the design winds that you know, obviously we depend on our fairly robust economy and customers moving ahead with the platforms that they design products into but let’s assume that you know that we have a reasonable second half then I do think that we’ll get that benefit.

Cody Acree

Analyst · Cody Acree with Stifel Nicolaus

And then lastly, guidance for next quarter, to what extent did economic influence have on that guidance of, versus normal [hour].

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well you know it’s one of those things when you talked to customers and they’re very nervous about shipments and to North America and the number of TV’s they’re going to ship for example and things like that. That’s really what gets you thinking about it. I would say that we’re really comfortable with the guidance we’ve given. It’s obviously will be a record Q1 for us if we achieve it so it’s an aggressive, still represents the kind of growth that we want to see and puts us in good shape for fiscal year ’09 growth so I don’t think you know we’re uncomfortable with it but I think you have to be honest and answer your question, I think it has been influenced by the kind of information we’re getting from our customers about their own nervousness.

Cody Acree

Analyst · Cody Acree with Stifel Nicolaus

Alright, great, thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

High guys, Mohan, first of all, Mohan a good quarter. Couple of questions, looking at your seasonality or your guidance for the quarter down about call it 8.5% at the midpoint, is that how we should be thinking about your company as having a seasonal movement or is that a little bit of the worst given what you’re seeing? Or are you simply being cautious.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

I would say that our profile, the company profile has changed somewhat Harsh, we are becoming more of a second half company, and the first half is a little bit, are going to be a little bit softer and that’s mostly driven by the strength of our protection business. And particularly its strength in handheld and computing so that’s one thing but then I think as I said in the last discussion that there is a little bit of concern about the state of the economy and the health of the markets and so there’s a little bit of cautiousness in there.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Okay fair enough, and then you know I think at some point in your script you talk about being comfortable with the 55% to 60% gross margin, are you still comfortable with the operating margin of 25% to 30% achieved in the next 12 months or so?

Emeka Chukwu

Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Harsh, this is Emeka, yes, we’re still very comfortable with that because like we have said in the past we expect operating margin to increase very modestly and so if we’re able to drive the gross margin expansion that we feel very good about, we should see a lot of our top line growth drop into the bottom line.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Fair enough and think you said to that is that it would be mostly a second half so that the gross margin extension.

Emeka Chukwu

Chief Financial Officer

Yes, the gross margin expansion is mostly for the second half but still expect to exit our fiscal year 2009 at the midpoint of our operating income, operating margin model which is 25% to 30%. So we do expect to exit somewhere between 25% to 27%.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Got it. A question for Mohan. Mohan you said I think the industrial business which is pretty strong. Between handhelds and, between I’m sorry consumer and computing was there any one sector that was particularly weak, weaker than you would have thought?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well, you know handhelds were probably, it was a surprise in Q4, I thought, I mean computing one does expect it to be down and handheld to be honest with you, if there’s one area of surprise it was probably handhelds a little bit softer and that’s where we’re seeing a slight up take in the booking now so I think that’s expected.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Are you seeing anything funny going on with the consumer in terms of just outside of general numbers that you mentioned it. Are you seeing any hot data points that make you concerned with what you’re seeing in the broader market space?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well I believe that nervousness Harsh I mean I have spoken with customers and customers have said that they are nervous about the consumer demand in North America and there’s no surprise to that really so.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Okay and now just one for Emeka, Emeka in your portfolio do you have any auction rate securities at this point in time?

Emeka Chukwu

Chief Financial Officer

No, we do not have any at this point in time, the last few ones that we had were actually we got out of those a few months ago.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Well that probably was a very good move Emeka. That’s it, I’ll come back and follow up thank you.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thank you.

Operation

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Again to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from the line of David Wu with Global Crown Capital.

David Wu

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Good Afternoon, can you talk a little bit about the, two things, it’s seasonal if we have a normal seasonal year, would the July quarter be your low point for the year and then you build in the second half or is July seasonally about the same the January quarter on an ongoing basis and the other one, the follow up actually is on the power management side. Mohan you’ve been to a company that was very big on desktop power management as well, and I was wondering what did that business is becoming such a commodity to business with our friends from Taiwan that in fact if you don’t compete for that business anymore, how would that affect your power management business overall?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Okay Dave so the first question on seasonality and the shape of the company. I expect to in Q3 to be in the future probably our strongest quarters. Q2 because of the buildup of product for Christmas and then Q3 you know handheld computing and consumer products being stronger so historically Semtech I think has had a stronger, if you go back and look at the data, stronger Q1 so you know this is the kind of shaping of the business as protection specifically in the handheld and computer spaces is doing very well as advanced common sensing starts to really ramp up particularly with the new strategies in that space I think that will also exaggerate the, that mix in terms of the consumer so in Q4 for us remember it goes into January so January is a little bit softer. And then your question on power management so I mean it’s no surprise as I came into Semtech I said look power management, desktop and notebook computing for us unless the customers are willing to and understand and want differentiated products, we’re not going to be able to win that battle and we talked about that and kind of shake the R&D into different areas. Having said that some of our customers both in the service space and in the notebook space are willing to pay and they are willing to pay a little bit more for the differentiation and you know in those cases we’ll continue to service them. So I think we can still have pretty reasonably sized computing power and computing business for the company it’s just that it won’t be as big and growing as much as I think historically and I think we’ll trade that off for more consumer industrial and communications power.

David Wu

Analyst · Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan

Thank you.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Steve Smigie with Raymond James.

Steven Smigie

Analyst · Steve Smigie with Raymond James

Great, thank you. In terms of the sort of positive outlook you have for the advanced com and sensing business is it more heavily loaded onto the old, [desemics] business as the advanced com or vice versa?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Steve the way to think about it is remember that we now integrated three businesses, three companies together so it was Zymics, Acapella which the advance communications product and now also the test and measurement products from Edge acquisition so when I look at AC&S now our advanced common sensing business, it really has those three components to them. And the growth, the real growth is going to come from actually what I’ll call integrated platforms, it isn’t platforms that either one, one single company had, it’s more integration of some of those platforms which I think can be very disruptive in the marketplace so they are in definition now, they’re in the pipeline now, they’re being developed and as they come out, I think you know there’s going to be some interest in them.

Steven Smigie

Analyst · Steve Smigie with Raymond James

And in the past when I could follow, this stuff was sort suffered it was, it had pretty, it was sort of a difficult sale I believe and it had a lot of problems but it was a little bit slower getting going, is there something that’s different now about the way you integrated the platforms or you’ve already been out there in the field getting feedback that you believe that the design winds are going to likely come in the back half?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah, I mean that’s a very good question, I mean basically it’s very simple because you know when you take a communications platform and you develop a communications platform for the communications market, it takes a long time to develop the platform and it takes a long time to generate revenue from that platform. If you take the same capabilities and you combine it with you know some consumer type of applications and you target the consumer space, you get a much shorter time to the platform being release and you get a shorter time for revenue but basically you’re using the same core technology as you had in a different, focused on a different area. So you know I think there are some things that we have done and I think we continue to do those things that I think will generate a little bit more opportunity for us to generate the type of revenue growth that I think that Semtech can achieve.

Steven Smigie

Analyst · Steve Smigie with Raymond James

Okay, and then in I think in the past, sort of an [class sided] industrial/military business it’s been roughly a third of the revenue or so, how much of that would be industrial versus an aerospace or other military type application?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Actually it’s, military is just, I think it’s probably.

Steven Smigie

Analyst · Steve Smigie with Raymond James

Well power discrete, the military session of that is about 9% of total Semtech revenue.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Yeah so the rest of it is high end medical, it’s high end industrial and aerospace being engines and that type of thing so it’s fairly broad and then the other component of industrial Steve is what is historically the Zymics basic business which is very solid business, a very solid business that got us into a broad range of the industrial customers.

Steven Smigie

Analyst · Steve Smigie with Raymond James

Great, and my final question is just on the business space products you were talking about. Is that, are those primarily dials or what type of product is that?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Dials and assemblies, yeah.

Steven Smigie

Analyst · Steve Smigie with Raymond James

Great. Alright, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from the line of Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group.

Manoj Nadkami

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

Hi, congratulations on solid reserves in a volatile market environment.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thank you.

Manoj Nadkami

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

Yeah, most my questions have been answered, just one quick question, what was the cash flow from operations?

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

During the quarter?

Manoj Nadkami

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

For the January quarter.

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

The cash flow from operations was approximately $17 to $18 million.

Manoj Nadkami

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

Okay and what are your expectations in the current quarter.

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

Well I haven’t hammered that out yet but I could say that because we really did a very good job of generating cash we have typically more of something in the range 22% to 25% of revenues.

Manoj Nadkami

Analyst · Manoj Nadkami from Chip Investor Group

Okay. All right. Well thank you.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nicolas Aberle with Caris.

Nick Aberle

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

Thanks guys, just question of visibility, so you guys are guiding to about a 39% churns rate at the midpoint for Q1, I’m assuming the backlog was down materially coming into the quarter, just given your conservatism just what gives you the confidence you can hit that higher churns rate it looks like over the last four or five quarter’s it’s been more like a 35% churn rate.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

The question what makes us confident that we can hit the 39%.

Nick Aberle

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

Yeah I mean just looks a little higher than the last couple quarters and.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Actually historically, we have, we’ve had achieved much higher turns in the last few years than the 39% on average each every quarter so that’s the reason if I look back two years ago we actually achieved 45% and 4% so we average about 45% turns and so that’s kind of the reason.

Nick Aberle

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

And then would you say in addition to that just some of the recent pick in some of your business lines also maybe contributing to that as well?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well the order strengthening is has obviously has helped. We do look at that, look at it very closely and I knew coming out of Chinese New Year you know that watching how the orders were coming in and which segments and which products that was going to be a critical metric for us and I think it’s something we’ve continued to keep an eye on but I won’t say it’s the order you know are so good that I’m going out and celebrating, it think it’s just modest improvement but I, we’ll take that for now.

Nick Aberle

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

Perfect. Last question, just with respect to inventories and channels there’s a slight uptake there, but you guys feel comfortable, is the take there that they were just too low coming into the quarter and now they’re more normalized?

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

Yeah, exactly that’s the point because back in Q3, we felt that if inventory channel was very low at 55 days and now it’s up to about 68, 69 days and I think that is more ideal. We actually would prefer to have inventory somewhere between 70 and 75 days.

Nick Aberle

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

Got you and are you guys seeing any difference in booking or demand levels from OEM customers relative to distribution customers.

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

Not Really. No.

Nick Aberle

Analyst · Nicolas Aberle with Caris

Okay, thanks guys.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is a follow up from the line of Doug Freedmen with Amtech Research.

Doug Freedman

Analyst · Amtech Research

Hi guys, thanks for taking my follow up. Question for you, you’ve been adding to the sales force, when do you think we’ll start to see maybe any impact from that and where are you targeting that effort at?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Well the target is across all regions I don’t think Semtech had a great sales team on a global basis so I think there was improvement to be made across the board. But obviously China is an area where we are focused. I think you know we continue to do quite a good job in Korea and Japan. But I think some strengthening there can help us even further. And to be honest with you, North America is more of an upgrade than adding resources. And then one thing that I would mention is that field application engineers sell a type of products that we need as you know they’re really critical and I think that’s probably the key area that we’ve spent some investment on across the board. I would say it’s across all regions.

Doug Freedman

Analyst · Amtech Research

Great, thanks, and then lastly, there’s been a bunch of changes in the analog market in terms of distribution coverage and relationships, any noticeable impacts to your business or anything that you’re seeing from like distributor interest in giving you mind share?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

I think actually anything that happens is good for us because we don’t get a lot of mind share today in most regions and so I think it’s actually some changing dynamics there aligning with distributors that recognize Semtech has a great future ahead of is a good thing for us so we’ll see how that plays out.

Doug Freedman

Analyst · Amtech Research

Alright, great, thanks again for taking my questions.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thanks.

Todd German

Management

Operator, how many more questions do we have on the line?

Operator

Operator

We have two questions.

Todd German

Management

Okay.

Operator

Operator

The next question is a follow up from the line of Harsh Kumar with Morgan Keegan.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Morgan Keegan

Hi guys, thanks for taking my question, I missed the first couple of minutes of the call, the $0.02 for the settlement of the lawsuit, is that including the $0.26 or not including the $0.26.

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Morgan Keegan

You mean the settlement of the lawsuit from Q4?

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Morgan Keegan

Correct.

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Morgan Keegan

It is included in the GAAP finance $0.23. It is not included in the non-GAAP of $0.26.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Morgan Keegan

Got it and then one quick follow up for Mohan, Mohan when you think about areas like LCD TV’s, mp3 players, traditionally Semtech’s not been very strong in it. You’ve got a couple of product, could you tell me how much percentage of revenues you get from non handheld but what I would call it hardcore consumer areas and do you see that as a growth opportunity?

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Today is very small Harsh, I would say it’s growing nicely, and it is a target market for us, you know we talk about handhelds people typically think of cell phones but we look at everything, media players, and cameras and the whole portfolio of handheld devices and that clearly is a target for us.

Harsh Kumar

Analyst · Morgan Keegan

Hey guys, thanks congratulations very nice results.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Thank you. Last question operator.

Operator

Operator

Your last question comes from the line of Craig Ellis of Citi.

Craig Ellis

Analyst · Citi

Thanks for sneaking me in, just on the new buyback and capital structure, how should we think about you’re intent, using the $50 million program. Do you want to take the cash balance to a lower level or should we think about you just using you’re cash generation capability to work down shares through the year.

Ekema Chukwu

Analyst · Citi

I think we’re going to finance our $50 million more out of our cash from operations. So it’s something that we tend to do gradually.

Craig Ellis

Analyst · Citi

Okay, well thanks Ekama.

Mohan Maheswaran

Management

Okay, let me summarize by saying that fiscal year 2008 was a very strong and memorable year for Semtech. The increase annual revenue sequentially by 13%, achieved a company revenue record in our 47 year history and increased non-GAAP BPS by an outstanding 24%. We also achieved record orders in the history of the company. In addition we saw four of our five businesses increase revenues and saw strong continued design momentum in all regions. Finally we repurchased 12.9 million shares and reorganized the company into four product groups. There was a lot of potential upside to our performance from our platform execution and strategic positioning of these new product platforms and it is clear to me that fiscal year 2008 was just the beginning of the journey for the new Semtech. With that I would like to thank everyone for participating in our Fourth Quarter Conference Call and I look forward to updating you all next quarter. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s Q4 fiscal year 2008 Semtech Corporation Earnings release conference call. Thank you for your participation, you may now disconnect.