Keysight Technologies Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 19, 2024

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

This call is being recorded today, Tuesday, November 19, 2024 at 1:30 pm Pacific Time. I'd now like to hand the call over to Paulina Sims, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ms.

Operator

Sims.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to Keysight's Q4 earnings conference call for fiscal year 2024. Joining me are Keysight's President and CEO, Satish Daneshi Karan and our CFO, Neel Doherty. In the Q and A session, we will be joined by Chief Customer Officer, Mark Wallace. The press release and information to supplement today's discussion are on our website at investor. Keysight.com under Financial Information and Quarterly Reports.

Speaker 1

Today's comments will refer to non GAAP financial measures. We will also make reference to core growth, which excludes the impact of currency movements and acquisitions or divestitures completed within the last 12 months. The most directly comparable GAAP financial metrics and reconciliations are on our website and all comparisons are on a year over year basis unless otherwise noted. We will make forward looking statements about the financial performance of the company on today's call. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are only valid as of today.

Speaker 1

We assume no obligation to update them and encourage you to review our recent SEC filings for a more complete view of these risks and other factors. Lastly, management is scheduled to participate in in upcoming investor conferences hosted by Wells Fargo and Barclays. And now, I will turn the call over to Satish.

Speaker 2

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. My comments will focus on 3 key headlines. 1st, Keysight executed well and delivered 4th quarter revenue and earnings per share above the high end of our guidance range under market conditions, which remain consistent with our expectations. Orders finished slightly above our expectations and grew 1% year over year and 8% sequentially, driven by ongoing strength in AI and strong year end bookings in our U. S.

Speaker 2

Aerospace, defense and government business. 2nd, strong execution and cost discipline drove full year revenue of $5,000,000,000 and earnings per share of $6.27 which were down from record highs of 2023. Results were paced by gradual improvement throughout the year with better performance in the second half as expected. Under challenging market conditions, we demonstrated the resilience of our business model by delivering 26% operating profit and over $900,000,000 in free cash flow. We also returned approximately 50% of free cash flow to shareholders through repurchases.

Speaker 2

3rd, we progressed our software centric solution strategy by investing to realize organic growth opportunities through innovation and industry collaborations, while expanding the breadth of our solutions through selective M and A. As we look ahead, the strength of our differentiated portfolio, deep engagement with customers and the accelerating pace of technology innovation gives us confidence in our ability to outperform as markets recover. Now let's begin with an overview of Keysight's 4th quarter business performance. Communications Solutions Group revenue was flat year over year and grew 6% sequentially with growth across both Commercial Communications and aerospace, defense and government. CSG orders returned to growth for the full year, reflecting AI momentum in wireline, stability in wireless and consistent strength in ADG.

Speaker 2

In wireline markets, demand remains strong due to ongoing expansion in AI data center infrastructure even as telco investments continue to be muted. As the timeline for 800 gig and 1.6 terabit adoption accelerates, the industry is investing in advanced technologies, including silicon photonics, chiplets and high speed electrical and optical interconnects. Keysight continued to expand its portfolio of solutions across the technology stack to enable customers in both R and D and manufacturing. At the Open Compute project in San Jose, Keysight showcased our newly introduced AI workload and system emulation solution in collaboration with Academia and Hyperscalers. Our solution provides high fidelity emulation of AI model training and inferencing workloads to optimize training time and benchmark AI infrastructure performance.

Speaker 2

At ECOG Conference, Keysight showcased physical and protocol layer solutions with industry leaders to enable 800 gig interoperability with critical optical and electrical interface technologies. In wireless, demand was stable as smartphone industry nears the end of its inventory correction and telco CapEx normalizes from peak levels. Investment continues in open RAN expansion, ongoing standards progression with emphasis on non terrestrial networks and early 6 gs research. This quarter, we announced multiple O RAN collaborations with industry leaders such as NTT DOCOMO, DISH Networks and Pegatron. We also collaborated with Qualcomm to establish industry's first end to end interoperability and data connection in the candidate frequency band for 6 gs, FR3.

Speaker 2

We're also well poised to drive industry innovation forward with our differentiated full stack solutions. Turning to aerospace, defense and government. Stronger than expected seasonality drove orders to an all time high. The funnel of opportunities remain strong. The U.

Speaker 2

S. Defense budget is expected to grow low single digits, while government investment in defense modernization in Europe and Asia is projected to increase. Customer engagements on electromagnetic spectrum operations, radar and advanced communication use cases remains high. Satellite communication investments is expected to continue as more LEO's constellations are launched over the next few years. Keysight is capitalizing on the growing investment in defense modernization around the globe.

Speaker 2

At the recent European Microwave Conference, we showcased our leading capabilities in phased array, over the air, compact antenna design and test in collaboration with Analog Devices. We also highlighted our latest flagship performance network analyzer. Its differentiated and industry leading capabilities include wideband, high dynamic range, preselected receivers for faster S parameter measurements to enable customers' high frequency component designs. Turning to Electronic Industrial Solutions Group. Revenue was down year over year as expected but grew mid single digits sequentially.

Speaker 2

Orders were mixed with year over year growth in semi and general electronics, offset by automotive market headwinds. In semiconductor, robust demand drove strong order growth for our parametric wafer test solutions. We saw broad based foundry investment to expand capacity and address leading edge applications driven by AI. This included advanced DRAM technologies such as high bandwidth memory and DDR PHY as well as silicon photonics, Enabling further advances in power semiconductor production and efficiency, this quarter Keysight introduced an innovative single pass, 3 kilo volt, high voltage wafer test solution. In automotive, the industry is facing challenges, and we expect the headwinds to continue in 2025.

Speaker 2

This quarter, production related demand was sequentially stable, while we saw incrementally cautious spending due to slowing EV sales and battery oversupply. Even with near term headwinds, we remain focused on customers' emerging innovation and design needs. Our R and D engagements for software defined vehicle as well as broader electrical and physical design applications remain high. ESI grew its solution business this year through steady renewals and new customer additions. Over this period, the ESI team also made significant contributions through the use of AI to improve product performance simulations and offering workflow solutions with immersive visualization to validate assembly and servicing.

Speaker 2

In General Electronics, we saw stable manufacturing demand, albeit at lower levels, and a modest sequential improvement in consumer and industrial high speed connectivity applications. Public and private sector investment in support of advanced research and technology workforce development grew this quarter, and digital health application demand was again strong. Turning to software and services. Revenues grew 8% this quarter and accounted for 39% of total Keysight revenue. Annual recurring revenue from software and services also grew 16% to approximately $1,500,000,000 and accounted for roughly 30% of Keysight overall.

Speaker 2

We saw solid growth in our design engineering software portfolio in 2024, reflecting the expansion of virtual prototyping across a broad range of industries. As a recognized thought leader in RFEDA, Keysight was selected to lead a U. S. Government joint public and private sector effort to leverage AI and machine learning to automate and bring efficiencies to complex RF integrated circuit designs. In summary, Keysight has continued to sustain strategic progress and momentum through the downturn.

Speaker 2

The flexibility and discipline of our operating model has proven our ability to deliver strong financial results and healthy cash flows in a variety of economic conditions. We have positioned the business to emerge stronger as markets recover, to capitalize on the opportunities ahead of us and to create value for all stakeholders. Before I conclude, I'd like to sincerely thank our employees once again for all their outstanding contributions, commitment and strong track record of execution under a variety of market conditions. With that, I'll turn it over to Neil to discuss our financial performance and outlook.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Satish, and hello, everyone. 4th quarter revenue of $1,287,000,000 was above the high end of our guidance range and down 2% or down 5% on a core basis. Orders of $1,345,000,000 were up 1% as reported or down 1% on a core basis. Backlog increased $53,000,000 in the quarter to finish at $2,400,000,000 Looking at our operational results for Q4, we reported gross margin of 64.5%. Operating expenses of $497,000,000 were up 5% year over year.

Speaker 3

Q4 operating margin was 26% or 28% on a core basis. Turning to earnings. We achieved $288,000,000 of net income and delivered earnings per share of $1.65 Our weighted average share count for the quarter was 174,000,000 shares. For the full year, Keysight generated revenue of $4,979,000,000 down 9% as reported or down 12% on a core basis. Gross margin was 65%, down 60 basis points versus the prior year.

Speaker 3

We sustained investment in R and D at $871,000,000 or 17.5 percent of revenue, while driving further operating efficiencies in SG and A, which declined 7% excluding acquisitions. Full year core operating margin of 26.5 percent was down 370 basis points, continuing to outperform Keysight's down cycle model and demonstrating the financial resilience of the business. Net income of $1,100,000,000 resulted in earnings per share of $6.27 Moving to the performance of our segments. The Communications Solutions Group generated 4th quarter revenue of $894,000,000 flat as reported or down 2% on a core basis. Commercial Communications revenue of $591,000,000 grew 4%, while Aerospace, Defense and Government revenue of $303,000,000 declined 6%.

Speaker 3

Altogether, CSG delivered gross margin of 67% and operating margin of 28%. The Electronic Industrial Solutions Group generated revenue of $393,000,000 down 6% or 11% on a core basis. EIC reported gross margin of 58% and operating margin of 21%, an increase of approximately 100 basis points versus the prior quarter. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the quarter with $1,800,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents, generating cash flow from operations of $359,000,000 and free cash flow of $328,000,000 Share repurchases this quarter totaled 974,000 shares at an average price per share of approximately $154 for a total consideration of $150,000,000 Full year share repurchases totaled $439,000,000 or 49 percent of the $905,000,000 in free cash flow generated this year.

Speaker 3

Now turning to our outlook. We expect the demand environment to remain mixed and for recovery to occur gradually through the year barring any further macro degradation. Our base case assumptions for FY 'twenty five are for revenue growth at the low end of our 5% to 7% long term target and earnings growth in line with our 10% target. As a reminder, the timing of ESI's annual contract renewals typically results in 40% to 45% of their full year revenue being recognized in our fiscal Q1, with the balance recognized relatively evenly over the remainder of the fiscal year. For the rest of the business, we are modeling the typical mid single digit seasonal decline in revenue from Q4 to Q1.

Speaker 3

As a result, we expect Q1 revenue to be in the range of $1,265,000,000 to $1,285,000,000 and Q1 earnings per share in the range of $1.65 to $1.71 based on a weighted diluted share count of approximately 174,000,000 shares. Now a few modeling considerations for the full year. Given the annual ESI contract renewals in Q1, we expect a material sequential decrease in ESI revenue in Q2 and over the same period, we expect a low single digit increase in core Keysight revenue. At current debt levels, annual interest expense is expected to be approximately $70,000,000 capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $150,000,000 and we are modeling a 14% non GAAP effective tax rate for FY 'twenty five. With that, I will now turn it back to Paulina for the Q and A.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Neil. Operator, will you please give the instructions for the Q and A?

Operator

Absolutely. The first question comes from the line of Aaron Rakers from Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on the results. I guess my first question is, I want to ask you about the wireless piece of the business. It seems to be recovering. I think it was kind of mid single digit, if I'm correct from the presentation, order growth in the quarter.

Speaker 4

I'm just curious of how you I guess the past conversations have suggested that's more of a stabilizing business as we move through this year. Has that started to change? Has your view of growth kind of recovery in that business started to evolve or deepen as we look through this next fiscal year?

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you, Aaron. Indeed, a good quarter. We executed well and capitalized on the opportunities we saw. Specific to your question on wireless, we continue to feel more confident, I would say, after 2 quarters where the business has stabilized.

Speaker 2

And we're seeing more strengths on the infrastructure side where there's more activity from customers around Open RAN and 6 gs Research. So that drives that. And on the devices side, it's lagging a little bit where customers still continue to be focused on ongoing standards evolutions. So I mean, at this point, we continue to believe that the business will remain stable in 2025. We'll call it when we see it.

Speaker 2

But we continue to feel good about the ongoing momentum we're seeing in our wireline business that's driven growth for Commercial Communications.

Speaker 4

Yes. And then as a quick follow-up, kind of sticking with looking at some of the segments. The Aerospace and Defense segment, I'm curious as this question has come up with some investors. It sounds like you're pretty confident that, that business continues to progress on the growth profile that you outlined. But have you seen any areas of concern or any kind of churn in programs, etcetera, around some of the federal dynamics of spend?

Speaker 4

Any uncertainties around that that you would point to?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think, Aaron, the long term trajectory of that business is actually the one that is easiest to forecast given the budget clarity that typically gets and the priorities that get set both in the U. S. And in allied nations. And if you look at electromagnetic spectrum operations, space and satellite and other areas, those are the areas where defense modernization investments are moving to and we feel good about our position.

Speaker 2

Relative to the year, obviously, orders were slightly down year over year, but off of a record compare from a year ago. And some of the wins that we had were systems wins, which take us a little longer to ship. So you haven't yet seen that in the revenue line. But as we look ahead, obviously, the short term with the administration change in the U. S.

Speaker 2

Does bring some uncertainties. But even at times, like in 2016, what that happened, we just had some business move out between quarters. And so we'll monitor the situation, but we feel good about the current situation with regard to our business there. Yeah. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Rob Mason with Baird. Your line is now open. I apologize. The next question is from Tim Woong with Barclays.

Operator

Your line is now open.

Speaker 5

Thank you. Yes, 2 for me as well. First, could you you mentioned AI leading the strength in wireline, obviously a lot going on there, a lot of activity. Could you maybe expand a little bit on how big that business is getting for you and maybe some examples of newer areas that Keysight is being pulled into because of the move in AI? And then the second one, I just wanted to follow-up on the software services up to 39% of revenues here.

Speaker 5

Maybe just talk a little bit about that evolving part of the business model and how Keysight is going to be able to move that number further and maybe impact on gross margin as that moves higher as well? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Tim. Clearly, the Waterline business has gained momentum this year, driven by AI. But this is one of the examples of proof of concepts that I highlighted at Investor Day, last year. And so we're quite pleased with the way the opportunity has progressed. Our wireline business has exceeded over $1,000,000,000 in orders this year, growing at double digit rates.

Speaker 2

And we service a broad set of customers in that industry, right? You think about silicon designers, system integrators, NEMs, hyperscalers and contract manufacturers. So it's actually a broad set of customers. But what's driving the activity in AI right now is actually a concentrated set of customers from hyperscalers that are investing in large infrastructure upgrades. So that's the effort.

Speaker 2

And the supply chain right now continues to be constrained. So investments are being made to unlock the supply chain to enable the scale to build. And so we're involved in that. We're capitalizing on that. But as we think about the future, we participated in some forums like the OCP and ECOC earlier this year, and you can start to see the scale expand.

Speaker 2

It's not yet reflected in the results yet. But we start to build scale around compute, whether it's centralized or at the edge, power and terminal being very big issues for companies. Networking technologies are being adopted, maybe even faster than they were being adopted before this AI became a big trend. And our opportunities we're excited about are not just in the physical layer, but in the protocol layer, allowing customers to emulate how traffic flows to an AI infrastructure and therefore optimize their investment. So we're pretty excited about the opportunities long term here and capitalizing on the near term strength.

Speaker 3

Yes. And then as it relates to software and services, obviously continuing to see a nice mix shift towards those portions of our business. And as I think a part of your question addressed gross margin, there would be software portions of those business are accretive to Keysight's average gross margin. The services portions are slightly dilutive to Keysight's average gross margin. But overall, both the service business has a lower expense structure, so both contribute nicely to profitability when you think about it from the operating margin line.

Speaker 6

And then Tim, I would just add, this is Mark, as far as the expansion. It's we've shown that it's more resilient to the current macro. Customers continue to invest in new methods, shifting left on virtual simulation and emulation of their systems to help reduce costs and increase efficiencies and we're seeing that. And then the second part of course is the further leverage of some of our new assets like ESI being exposed to more of our customers in different regions, the U. S.

Speaker 6

For aerospace defense, parts of Asia, with the broad Keysight footprint in those regions, we see that as a driver for additional growth as we go forward.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Tim.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Rob Jamieson with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.

Speaker 4

Hey, guys. Congrats on the quarter. Just a couple of

Speaker 7

quick ones for me. Just first on the Communications business, just what kind of benefit could we see from BEAT funding just in second half of twenty twenty five? I mean, is there much benefit there if that funding does get actual released and finally comes to fruition? And then I guess also any potential risk of that being reversed just given some of Trump's advisors at this point that have been anti need funding?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think the good thing about Keysight's business model in comps and in fact, the rest of our business is the broad set of customers we serve. That diversity and breadth is a source of great strength during times of change. And so while we do pick up some incremental business every year from new logos that come up because they're funded directly or indirectly, there are some direct funding from government at times that flows into Open RAN. And we've called some of those wins out and even the CHIPS Act, but we're not heavily tethered to any one of those things.

Speaker 2

So, I would just say that those are incremental in some ways, but not as material as maybe the headlines with Surgastics, especially because we're more involved in the R and D side of those labs. And so we feel good. I think the momentum we see because of our renewed focus on go to market expansion that we had put in place with marketing is the continued attraction of new logos that we see across our business that continues to be the focus for us moving forward as well.

Speaker 7

That's really helpful. I appreciate that. And then I guess just on tariffs just real quick. And just you guys have been dealing with this in one way or another for over 8 years. Can you just talk about your previous strategies around your pivots in the APAC region, just whether it's been Yahweh, ZTE or even the Trump tariffs, just how you've kind of managed that in the past?

Speaker 2

Yes. I would just say it's probably it's a question behind the question, if I'm understanding you right, is what are the implications of the U. S. Elections and therefore the policy changes that we see you. And so like everybody, we're monitoring 3 areas, tax, trade, both tariffs and trade restrictions, right, as areas.

Speaker 2

And along with defense spending that might ensue. It will be premature for us to comment on them, except to say that we've been pretty agile in ensuring compliance when there is a new government restriction and pivoting our sales resources to go after new opportunities. A potential offset could be, and again, I'm breaking my rule and speculating a little bit is if there were to be tariffs of the orders being discussed, many companies are looking to more of China into other areas in Southeast Asia. And we remain prepared to capitalize on the opportunities should that occur.

Speaker 7

Got it. So similar to like what we saw with reshoring and everything during supply chain disruptions, the benefit that we saw there?

Speaker 2

Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 7

Great, great.

Speaker 4

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Rob Mason with Baird. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Good afternoon. And again, nice jump on the quarter. Just with respect to your thoughts around 2025 revenue, Satish, I know you covered some of the segments, but just at a high level, I mean, is it fair to think you think all of your major, I'll say segments, again, we're talking wireline, wireless, automotive, general electronics, some of these verticals, Would all of them have an opportunity to grow in 2025, do you think within the kind of mid single digit profile that you're talking about? Automotive sound like maybe it was the most challenge, but I'd just like to get your thoughts there around.

Speaker 2

That's good. Look, our job number 1, Rob, was to stabilize

Speaker 8

the business and

Speaker 2

return to order growth, which we set out as a priority for the second half. And I'm quite pleased that we've executed to that. Now looking at the facts, you'd say CSG has returned to growth, in the for the full year from an order perspective. And EISG is yet to do that. So that sort of summarizes the mix demand environment.

Speaker 2

And just projecting forward, we expect continued sort of slow gradual recovery as we move into 2025. We're not baking in our base case, all segments inflecting. And should that happen, we'll be prepared to capitalize on it. But our base case that Neel has called out in his outlook section is for 5% revenue growth and 10% EPS growth for the year.

Speaker 6

Yes. Okay. That's helpful. Just as a follow-up and maybe this directed to Neil. Just with the higher ESI revenue in the Q1, I would assume that the gross margin will reflect that at least sequentially.

Speaker 6

Could you maybe give us a little bit of thoughts around your OpEx as you trend in from Q4 into Q1? There's often some resets. I know seasonality as well influences that, but I'm just kind of curious what kind of trajectory OpEx is on as you enter the New Year?

Speaker 3

Yes. Let me just touch on a couple of seasonality related comments since you both the door to that. I think first of all, as you mentioned with regard to gross margin, with the sizable uptick in ESI revenue, we would expect some gross margin upside from that business in Q1. Similarly though then as you move from Q1 to Q2, you have reverse effect as that revenue comes out of the model. So just if you put it on one side, you got to take it out on the other side.

Speaker 3

With regard to OpEx, just reminding you of some things that are kind of the norm for Keysight. We do do salary administration for the entire company here in the Q1 of the year. So that will be impacting the P and L starting essentially now. And then as the business influx from a period of contraction back to a period of growth, we have essentially our variable pay programs turning back on, which will increase OpEx here starting in the first half of next year.

Speaker 6

Very good. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Matt Niknam with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Speaker 9

Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking the question. On macro, I'm curious if you can speak to how that backdrop has evolved over the last quarter? Because it seems like there's some pockets that are getting better yet. It seems like others like auto that are maybe a little bit softer.

Speaker 9

So any general commentary on the macro backdrop you can provide? And then, just as a follow-up on Aerospace Defense. Can you talk on maybe what changed later in the quarter? You mentioned a very strong closeout to the quarter, particularly around the U. S.

Speaker 9

Just curious in terms of what changed and how maybe that's trended into the start of fiscal 1Q? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. Why don't I start by making some comments about macro and then we'll let Mark Wallace make some comments about the broader aerospace defense business. So first of all, as Satish mentioned in his prepared comments, the results in Q4 were marginally better than we expected coming into the quarter. And so I think that's possible. A lot of that strength itself was in aerospace defense.

Speaker 3

And so Mark will talk about that. But I think as you think about macro changes and the previous question alluded to this as well, I think the automotive business is where we're seeing the most pressure, significant pullback in spend around EV development at this point in time, which is impacting the industry pretty significantly. I think if you look across broader strength in wireline, stability maybe not yet a strong catalyst for growth in wireless, but at least stability, nice forward momentum in aerospace defense. I think with regard to semi, it's a question of timing, when do I think everybody's optimistic about a turn back on in semi. The question is when does that really begin in earnest.

Speaker 3

And then the industrial end markets, maybe the biggest question mark, because I think some of that is going to be tied to how a lot of that capacity that was put in place during the 2021, 2022, 2023 supply chain disruptions, over what time is that capacity fully absorbed and people start to once again reinvest in manufacturing capacity. So that's kind of how we're thinking through the end markets from a macro perspective.

Speaker 6

Yes. And Matt, I think the aerospace defense as Satish talked about, the focus on defense modernization has remained a top priority in the U. S. And allied nations. We had continuing resolution in the 1st part of last fiscal year, the government fiscal year 2024, which put some delays on new program starts.

Speaker 6

So as we entered into the Q4 with the government fiscal year end in September, we saw increased spend as we would normally see, which was not certain because of delays in the budgeting process. So that was a big positive. We see continued investments from the prime contractors as well as the direct government in the U. S. And the prime contractors in Western Europe as well as we've been talking about for many quarters to the geopolitical situation that continues to unfold.

Speaker 6

So those factors come together. And then longer term, I think the areas that are promising for us continue to be around Emso, space and satellite and quantum with some of the government funded research that's occurring in all parts of the world continue to offer us opportunities over the coming quarters.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Speaker 8

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I guess for my first one, Satish, if I can go back to your comments earlier about not really embedding sort of inflection in all of the businesses and your 5% growth target for fiscal 2025. How should I think about what kind of recovery or what your expectations are embedded in for semicap and general electronics? It seems like both are a bit mixed in terms of what you're seeing, but if you can just outline how you're thinking about, those two areas in particular?

Speaker 8

And I have a quick follow-up after that. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Samik. I think for semiconductor fabs, just based on what we're seeing and the pipeline of opportunities we see for our wafer test solutions around silicon photonics and new memory topologies and some of the higher voltage types of wafers, I think that strength continues for us. In somewhat a little bit offset by and that's the bigger part of our semi business, somewhat offset by a slowdown that a number of the semiconductor equipment manufacturers reported as well. So you put that in the mix, we still think semi grows from these levels for us. And again, semiconductor is, as you know, is roughly 10% of our total revenue at the company level.

Speaker 2

From a general electronics perspective, what we have started to see and again, 1 quarter doesn't make a trend. So I just want to caution you. But I do think in Q4, we saw stability in manufacturing, which finally resulted in the underlying strength in research spending around next generation technologies, the broad new customer logo, all of that return that business to growth. Again, it's just 1 quarter. But we think that stability in manufacturing continues as we move forward as well, which should give some which should return which should put EISG on return to order growth at some point in the year.

Speaker 2

It's difficult to call at this point.

Speaker 8

Okay. Okay. And my follow-up, maybe this is more for Neil. I think, Neil, a question you're getting a lot from investors is when they look at some of your previous margin targets that were a bit more longer term for fiscal 2020 6, you're not really that much different at this point from a gross margin perspective where the guidance was 66% to 67%, but you significantly had a gap to your operating margin target of 31% to 32%. How should we think about the drivers?

Speaker 8

And sort of beyond volume leverage, how are you thinking about other drivers that get you closer to that target? Or is there something that sort of needs to be reevaluated related to those targets? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. I'd say a couple

Speaker 3

of things. So first of all, I think we're pleased with how gross margins have held up on the downside of the cycle. Obviously, we've gotten some benefit here from the addition of the ESI software business. But even if you look at the core Keysight business, the gross margins have held up pretty well in total on the downside of the cycle. I think when you start to think about those targets that we put out 66%, 67% operating margin targets where again we're 150 basis points, 200 basis points off of that at current levels And but we're significantly further off on the operating margin line.

Speaker 3

I think you need to look at the impact that the acquisitions are having in the short run where we've made some acquisitions that are accretive to gross margins, but significantly dilutive to operating margins. And I think as we get those businesses integrated and start to operate them within the greater Keysight operating model, there's going to be opportunity for us to drive significant profit leverage on those acquisitions and start to close that gap on the operating margin side of things.

Speaker 2

And Samik, we remain confident in the long term growth opportunities of this business. And you've seen when we can deliver above model growth rates, the sort of earnings power and leverage we have, we continue to operate this business in a disciplined way to be able to realize those and get us back on track.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Meta Marshall with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Speaker 10

Hi, this is Quran on for Meta. Congrats on the quarter. So just starting on the automotive side, clearly you remain quite positive on simulation, but outside of that, are there any other exposures that you have within auto that could cause a pickup in the business outside of maybe EV sales improvement? And then I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Sure. Yes. So there's several parts to automotive. The part that we're seeing the slowdown and project delays is around EV investments that have been quite robust over the last several years with battery test labs. So we're seeing a pause in that.

Speaker 6

We're seeing manufacturing demand also stay lower levels, but that's another part of our business that as inventories normalize that we should see some increasing flow through of manufacturing test for that. The part that's remained steady is the software defined vehicles or the ADAS, the autonomy side, where we have continued innovation crossing over multiple parts of our business into communications, sensor technology and so forth. And a lot of that is software as well. So there's a lot of work being done in that frame. The other one that doesn't get as much attention at least from these calls, but gets a lot of attention on the news is the infrastructure.

Speaker 6

So the charging infrastructure and the standards associated with those in every region of the world represents additional opportunities that we're pursuing. So long term drivers of growth, secular drivers around AV, the manufacturing coming back on new advanced technologies remains an area of focus for us over many years.

Speaker 10

Got it. That's helpful. And then coming back to the AI side, are there any areas that you see in your portfolio that you could maybe grow content or offer new products to sort of take advantage of the opportunity that you're seeing today? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Good question. I think as we mentioned, the more logical areas, which we have seen growth come from to date or results come from to date are associated with the physical layer tools where we provide our oscilloscopes or sampling scopes and other tools that we provide. And what we're seeing is a bigger opportunity for our emulation platforms. We're still in early pilots with customers on.

Speaker 2

Again, it's a small it's a concentrated set of opportunities today. We expect that industry and the impact AI is going to have to be broader. And we're participating in enabling the ecosystem with the right set of tools all the way from design to test. And our focus is on the enabling our customers in the R and D parts of the workflow. And it's a pretty rich opportunity for us.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis. Your line is now open.

Speaker 11

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Congrats on the beat. And Mark, congratulations on your retirement.

Speaker 6

Hey, thanks, Adam.

Speaker 11

Wanted to ask first about the operating margin in Communications. I think that was your best ever quarterly operating margin, which kind of took me by surprise. Curious, what drove that and what the outlook is there?

Speaker 3

Yes. So, obviously we are very pleased with the results in CSG. Gross margins have held a very strong in that business. I think we see a tight not only do we see a higher software content, higher recurring revenue from software, which obviously helps margins, but I think there's less margin diversity in the CSG portfolio than we see on the ESG side, so less impact from mix. From a profitability standpoint, I think we're very pleased that we're keeping our foot on the gas on the R and D side, continuing to invest to position ourselves to capitalize on the upside while driving significant efficiencies in SG and A resulting in the strong profitability that we saw.

Speaker 3

So it was the strongest profitability we saw this quarter, not an all time record obviously, but very strong operating margins in CSG this quarter.

Speaker 11

And then in EISG, as you think about the full year, what are the growth offsets to the weakness in auto?

Speaker 3

You're talking about in 2024 and 2025?

Speaker 11

For fiscal 2025,

Speaker 7

what offset in auto this year?

Speaker 3

Yes. I mean I think as Satish look forward, as we look to semi and to the broader industrial markets, there is reason for optimism with some of the fab programs and the absorption of capacity that was put in place in prior years. Again, likely to be more back end loaded. We've talked about at the Keysight level a gradual improvement through the year. And so as Satish just said, we would expect there is an opportunity for EISG, which is not yet return to order growth to do so in the back half of the year.

Speaker 3

And I think that would be with some significant increase in the strength of the semi markets and some modest recovery in industrial end markets.

Speaker 2

Got it. Thanks, Neil.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Hey, thank you for taking my question. You have Will on for Mark Delaney here. Just one on M and A. So with the proposed Spirent transaction still ongoing, will Keysight be open to doing other larger transactions in the near term if one that made business and financial sense was available?

Speaker 2

Yes. I would just say, look, we have re traded a very strong organic growth strategy that we're focused on realizing. We've also identified specific markets that we have studied to pursue a selective M and A. And at this point, while we continue to evaluate targets, we always remain disciplined and we'll look at them. But it's not a matter of capital as much as bandwidth to pursue more deals given the deals that we've already announced, which we're working through.

Speaker 6

No, it shouldn't be helpful. Thank you for that. And just one more on capital allocation. How should we be thinking about buybacks for fiscal 2025? Any cadence commentary or any color that you can add there would be helpful?

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. The only thing I would say is that, obviously, we look forward to the close of the Spirent transaction, which will be a significant capital outlay for the company. And but we do expect that we will, at a minimum, continue with our buyback program at least the dilutive level and then we'll be trying to strike a balance between starting to get the cash ready to close the Spirent transaction traded off against what we might see as opportunistic opportunities to do more on the buyback front.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes our question and answer session for today. I would like to turn the call back to Paulina

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Keysight Technologies Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00