NASDAQ:VIAV Viavi Solutions Q2 2024 Earnings Report $9.02 -0.32 (-3.37%) As of 10:12 AM Eastern This is a fair market value price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Viavi Solutions EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.05Consensus EPS $0.05Beat/MissMet ExpectationsOne Year Ago EPSN/AViavi Solutions Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$254.50 millionExpected Revenue$249.77 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$4.73 millionYoY Revenue GrowthN/AViavi Solutions Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2024Date2/1/2024TimeN/AConference Call DateThursday, February 1, 2024Conference Call Time4:30PM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Viavi Solutions Q2 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrFebruary 1, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 8 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Hello, everyone. My name is Rob. Welcome to VIAVI Solutions Second Quarter Fiscal Year 20 24 Earnings 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. Operator00:00:14I'll now turn the conference over to Ilhan Dascalle, VIAVI Solutions' CFO. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:22Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to VIAVI Solutions' 2nd quarter fiscal year 2024 earnings call. My name is Ilan Daskal, VIAVI Solutions' CFO, and with me on today's call is Oleg Haykin, our President and CEO. Please note, this call will include forward looking statements about the company's financial performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations and estimations. Speaker 100:00:56We encourage you to review our most recent Annual Report and SEC filings, particularly the risk factors described in those filings. The forward looking statements, including guidance that we provided during this call, are valid only as of today. VIAVI undertakes no obligation to update these statements. Please also note that unless we state otherwise, All results discussed on this call, except revenue, are non GAAP. We reconcile these non GAAP results to our preliminary GAAP financials and discuss their usefulness and limitations in today's earnings release. Speaker 100:01:36The release as well as our supplemental earnings slides, which include historical financial tables, are available on VIAVI's website at www dotinvestor. Viavisolutions.com. Finally, we are recording today's call and will make the recording available on our website by 4:30 p. M. Pacific Time this evening. Speaker 100:01:59Now I would like to review the results of the Q2 of fiscal year 2024. Net revenue for the quarter was $254,500,000 which was above the midpoint of our guidance range $240,000,000 to $260,000,000 Revenue was up sequentially by 2.7% and on a year over year basis was down 10.5%. Operating margin for the 2nd fiscal quarter was 13.2% and exceeded the high end of our guidance range of 9.6% to 12.8%. Operating margin increased 80 basis points from the prior quarter and on a year over year basis was down 300 basis points. EPS at $0.11 exceeded the high end of our guidance range of $0.06 to 0 point 1 $0.10 and was up $0.02 sequentially and on a year over year basis was down 0 point 0 $3 Moving on to our Q2 results by business segment. Speaker 100:03:07NSE revenue for the 2nd fiscal quarter came in at $179,600,000 which is above the midpoint of our guidance range of 169 $185,000,000 On a year over year basis, revenue was down 13.3%, primarily due to lower CapEx spend by NAMs and weaker spend by service providers. NE revenue for the quarter was $155,500,000 which is a 15.2% year over year decline. SE revenue was $24,100,000 and grew 1.3% from the same period last year. NSE gross margin for the quarter was 63.4%, which is 100 basis points lower on a year over year basis. NE gross margin was 62.5%, which is a decrease of 190 basis points from the same period last year and was primarily due to a combination of product mix and lower volume. Speaker 100:04:15SE gross margin was 68.9%, which is an increase of 4 60 basis points from the same period last year and benefited from higher margin product mix. NSE's operating margin was 3.6%, which is an increase of 2 70 basis points sequentially and a decrease of 5.30 basis points on a year over year basis. NSE operating margin was above the midpoint of our guidance range of 0% to 4%. OSP revenue for the 2nd fiscal quarter came in at $74,900,000 which was at the high end of our guidance range of $71,000,000 to $75,000,000 and was down 3.2% on a year over year basis. OSP gross margin was 52.1%, which is a decrease of 20 basis points from the same period last year and was primarily due to lower volume and unfavorable product mix. Speaker 100:05:21OSP operating margin was 36.4%, which is 140 basis points lower sequentially and increased 90 basis points on a year over year basis. OSP operating margin exceeded the high end of our guidance range of 32.5 percent to 34.5%. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow. Total cash and short term investments at the end of Q2 was $571,800,000 compared to $489,700,000 in the same period last year. Cash flow from operating activities for the quarter was 20 $200,000 in the same period last year. Speaker 100:06:12We have not purchased any shares of our stock in the 2nd quarter As we plan to retire, the outstanding balance of our March 2024 convertible notes in the amount of $96,400,000 The fully diluted share count for the quarter was 223,500,000 shares, down from 227,100,000 in the prior quarter and was versus 222,000,000 shares in our guidance for the 2nd quarter. CapEx for the quarter was $5,800,000 which is $12,300,000 lower versus the same period last year when we are completing the construction of our new facility in Chandler. Moving on to our guidance. For the 3rd fiscal quarter of 2024, we expect revenue in the range of $245,000,000 and $253,000,000 Operating margin is expected to be 10.4 percent, plus or minus 160 basis points, and EPS to be between $0.05 $0.09 We expect NSE revenue to be approximately 100 and $76,000,000 plus or minus $3,000,000 with an operating margin of 1.5 percent plus or minus 150 basis points. OSP revenue is expected to be approximately $73,000,000 plusorminus1000000 dollars with an operating margin of 31.8 percent, plusorminus200 basis points. Speaker 100:07:54Our tax expenses for the Q3 are expected to be around $8,000,000 as a result of jurisdictional mix. We expect other income and expenses to reflect a net expense of approximately $3,000,000 And the share count is expected to be around 224,700,000 shares. With that, I will turn the call over to Oleg. Oleg? Speaker 200:08:19Thank you, Ilan, and welcome to your first earnings call with VIAVI. The fiscal Q2 2024 came in stronger than expected. Revenue was slightly above the midpoint of our guidance helped by stronger demand for 400 gig and 800 gig fiber, Middle Arrow and SE Products. EPS came in above the high end of our guidance driven by richer margin revenue mix and lower OpEx. In the near term, we expect stronger demand in the above product areas to help offset continued weakness in the service provider spend. Speaker 200:08:56Starting with NSE, the 2nd fiscal quarter NSE revenue came in above the midpoint of our guidance range. Although the NSE revenue declined on year over year basis, driven by a slowdown in 5 gs and fiber build outs by major service providers, There was a number of bright spots. Fiber Lab and production has continued to recover driven by strong 800 gig demand offsetting weakness in computing and storage. Aerospace and Defense products saw robust growth driven by strong demand for avionics and P and T or positioning, navigation and timing products. And the new SE products continued to perform well resulting in a slight year over year growth despite the decline in service provider spend. Speaker 200:09:41Looking ahead, we expect continued demand recovery and growth in our Fiber 11 Production, Aerospace and Defense and SC Products compensating for the continued near term weakness in the service provider spend. Now turning to OSP. OSP declines on a year over year basis primarily driven by lower demand for anti counterfeiting products. This decline was partially offset by strong 3 d sensing demand. Overall OSP results came in at higher end of our guidance range. Speaker 200:10:13In the March quarter, we expect OSP to be slightly down from the December quarter with a stronger demand for anti counterfeiting products offsetting the seasonal decline in 3 d sensing. Looking ahead to calendar 2024, we expect telecom service provider spend to continue to be soft with the notable exception of the North American cable operators. We expect cable spend to ramp in the middle or second half of calendar year twenty twenty four. That said, our strategy in the past 6 years to diversify outside the service providers into 11 production and aerospace and defense makes it easier to ride out the telecom cycle downturn. 11 production spend is seeing a faster recovery versus service providers driven by the demand for the new technologies such as 800 gig and Open RAN. Speaker 200:11:04Recently, PIAVI was awarded a $21,700,000 grant by NTIA to create an advanced test lab to empower and accelerate the development of Open RAN technologies and components. These awards reflect VIAVI's technology leadership in 5 gs, upcoming 6 gs and Aura. Our aerospace and defense products are seeing strong demand and growth driven by the next gen avionics and the need to protect critical infrastructure and assets against jamming, spoofing and cyber warfare. In conclusion, I'd like to thank my VIAVI team for managing in this challenging environment and express my appreciation to our employees, customers and shareholders for their support. With that, I will now turn it back to the operator and Q and A. Operator00:12:03And your first question comes from the line of Michael Genovese from Rosenblatt. Your line is open. Speaker 300:12:10Great. Thanks a lot. All I got, first question is just on the service provider market, just to understand, make sure I heard the comments right. It sounds like you're saying all of 'twenty four calendar expects to be weak there, with cable getting better at the end of the year. First of all, did I hear that right? Speaker 300:12:28And secondly, did your expectations change in the last 3 months? Has the carrier stuff, the telecom stuff gotten More pushed out or was that consistent with 3 months ago? Speaker 200:12:41Well, so here, let me just say, look, Reality is I don't know what the second half is going to look like from service providers. We know the demand will be somewhat stronger in the June quarter. It's always stronger. Beyond that, I just think, I mean, clearly it's not getting any worse, it's getting a little better. But I would still prefer to think of it as a flat to slightly recovering as the kind of more suprandy because I think They're still pretty weak. Speaker 200:13:13But the point is we're seeing it's coming in, but it's not as dramatic as I would have liked to see. Now the area that is stronger is the cable. In fact, we were expecting cable to start spending and coming in, in the first half of calendar year. But As you probably know, there were some delays driven by technology readiness in deploying the GAA architecture by some of the vendors and as such the ramp is being pushed by 1 or 2 quarters. So We know it's coming. Speaker 200:13:45We're already seeing some orders, but the spike that we were expecting in the March quarter got pushed out. That's why we are guiding March quarter flat to slightly down. It was going to be slightly up In the absence of that slowdown, I mean, let's put it this way, I feel a lot better about the environment in which we're operating than we were Even a quarter or 2 quarters ago, I just don't want to get ahead of our skis on service provider recovery because When I see it, I'll believe it. I mean, so I think they still got a lot of balance sheet issues they need to address before they really start spending significantly. Speaker 300:14:28Okay. That's like Speaker 200:14:29So just take it as an abundance of caution. I mean, do I feel better about what's going on? The answer is yes. Am I seeing big dollars coming in? The answer is no. Speaker 200:14:41Now one thing is what we did see interesting is we're seeing pretty good traction on our service enablement products with the new architecture AI ops, which drive OpEx reduction and things like Capital avoidance, so there we are seeing a pretty good traction. But on the instrumentation, particularly with fiber deployment, I think there is pause that may at least last 6 months. Maybe towards the second half of the year things will get better. But at this point, I think it's My crystal ball is telling me I'm not seeing anything dramatic changing. Speaker 300:15:17Understand, understand. Great. Next question, This 800 gs Fiber Lab in production sounds very interesting. And I think you've probably had either 2 or 3 quarters of sort of measurable revenues there. So I assume that that is Increasing and any color you can give us on that? Speaker 300:15:39And not sure whether you would answer this question, but sort of how much of any That represents either now or what it could be in the future would be very helpful. Speaker 200:15:52Well, so I mean our 11 production business, I would say on any let's see, If I think about the we have a network enablement and the SC, so network enablement is about 87%. I'd say Our 11 production is I think it but it also includes wireless, it's about 40%. So And of that, I'd say Fiber Lab and kind of compute high performance computing is roughly half of that, right? So maybe 20%. And now with the storage being a slowdown, we saw the computing and storage was weaker. Speaker 200:16:37I mean, all of that business really kind of bottomed out around the June quarter. But what's really been driving the recovery of that business is the fiber production and the fiber lab demand and it's driven by 408 100 gig products, right. So I think so what I'd say is, it's now First of all, it's recovering continue to grow. I think the same players who are building telecom modules and now recently these AI data center modules are buying the equipment. I've been trying to ascertain like for so many 1,000,000 ports how much equipment is being bought. Speaker 200:17:27I think we're probably not there in terms of truly understanding how the CapEx spend is linked to that because it's still early in the game. But exactly same equipment that they use on the coherent telecom module line, They're using it also on building the data center modules for the AI applications. Speaker 300:17:53Great. Yes, it sounds like going forward that will be interesting to figure that out, That relationship, I can't wait to get an update on that. Okay, last question for me. I'm sorry to take so much time. But I'd like to ask Lon, a question, which is can you just help me understand the because the revenues were pretty good for the quarter, the earnings were good, the revenue guidance is good. Speaker 300:18:17I'm just still not seeing the reason why the EPS guidance is lower. So could you explain that to me? Speaker 100:18:24Sure. Thanks for the question. So as you know, our 3rd fiscal quarter from a seasonality perspective is usually kind of Slower than the Q2, so if you think about it on a consecutive basis. Then also when you have kind of the beginning of the calendar year, There's some incremental cost associated with employee related, and that kind of drives kind of in terms of the OpEx. But again, as Oleg mentioned earlier, the traditional seasonality when you think about it, It's kind of building up really nicely when you think about the rest of the year, including the Q4. Speaker 200:19:08Yes. So there's a lot of statutory cost accrual that happens in the Q1 of the calendar year. And On the OSP, you noticed there is a lower margin because it's a cyclicality of a 3 d sensing. The second half of the fiscal year is a much lower utilization, so there is more under absorption in that respect. Now that said, The anti counterfeiting is coming back, so it's offset some of it, but not all of it. Speaker 200:19:37And last quarter, the 3 d sensing was quite strong. Speaker 300:19:42Okay, great. Thanks so much for all the answers to the question. Thanks again. Speaker 100:19:46Thank you. Operator00:19:48Your next question comes from the line of Tim Savageaux from Northland Capital. Your line is open. Tim, your line is open. Speaker 400:20:02Okay. Figured it out. Good afternoon. Oleg, can you remind us of your lead times In service provider fiber test? Speaker 200:20:17Generally, if we get an order, I'd say within 2 months we can turn it around. So it's all within a quarter more or less. Now except for some Things like if it's a some products are very quick like for example, fiber scope and things like that. Other products like where you're buying a whole bench, where you have a MEMS switches and things like that, if we have them in inventory, we can turn it around within, I'd say, 2 to 3 months. Speaker 400:20:50And where would you assess your service provider Inventories to be with your product? Speaker 200:20:590. I mean, it's all just in time. Speaker 400:21:05Right. And I guess the reason I ask you this is that Throughout the early part of reports here from both some of your bigger peers, Corning, Nokia, as well as some of the bigger service providers, We have seen some early indications of project based kind of Increases in plans for 2024. And I'm just trying to reconcile what's been a pretty consistent drumbeat here With what we're hearing from you, and I think there could be typically you lead these things, but I don't know. Might you lag at this point because of the lead times? I wonder. Speaker 400:21:51No. I don't think so. Are you seeing some of the same things? Speaker 200:21:55I don't think we're looking. Once they decide and when they tell these guys they're going to do a project, they may tell it to them before they tell us. Once they are ready to start building, they just place an order and within 2 months they get their equipment. It's pretty quick. Speaker 300:22:16Makes sense. I'll pass it along. Operator00:22:20Your next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson from Needham and Company. Your line is open. Speaker 500:22:27Thanks. Can you give us a little bit more granularity on the size of the 3 d sensing in the quarter and The expectation for the 3 d sensing in the March quarter? Speaker 200:22:41Well, so generally, Alex, 3 gs sensing, half of the annual demand comes in, in the September December quarter sorry, 2 thirds comes in, in the September December quarter and 1 third comes in the March and the June quarter. So I would say we ran right around $20,000,000 $25,000,000 in the quarter. Speaker 500:23:09And so in the upcoming quarter, you're looking at what $10,000,000 or so? Speaker 200:23:16This quarter? I think maybe a little more than 10, but Yes, it's about it's around It's $10,000,000 plusminus $1,500,000 Speaker 500:23:35And can you give us an update on the plant in Phoenix? It's now Fully operational, all of the benefits of the cost improvement are in the mechanics of the Counter fitting business at this point, is that correct? Speaker 200:23:52Yes. So, what we are seeing now, so That's when you know where people are running out of inventory. So you start seeing a lot of unforecasted spot orders popping up like hurry up and ship as soon as you can. So we're starting to see more and more of these type of things popping up. They're not big orders, But it's telling us the inventory is starting to deplete itself in the channel. Speaker 200:24:20So in the March quarter, We're expecting a little bit stronger demand from what we were thinking maybe even 3 months ago. So that's actually helping us to offset some of the 3 d sensing decline quarter on quarter? Speaker 100:24:37Generally, it is fully operational and we still have More capacity for additional growth there. So it's not in terms of full utilization, it's not yet there in terms of the availability that we can get. Speaker 500:24:54Fully operational, but not fully capacity, right, of course. Speaker 200:24:59Alex, let me give you a correction. Actually, 3 gs sensing is going to be closer about $16,000,000 in this quarter. Speaker 500:25:0616. Perfect. Thanks. Speaker 200:25:08Yes. I was thinking at the end of the year. Speaker 500:25:12So going back to this Split on the 800 gig products, just to be clear. So the ratio of ports to equipment is Quite low, right? I mean, we're talking about double digit port per kind of ratio there. I assume That this is predominantly going into the production side of it. It's not going into the field deployment. Speaker 500:25:40And you're talking about how many Products can go through a test and measurement process in any given period, but that's sampling process. So the ratio is very, very high relative to the total number of ports that go across that equipment, right? Speaker 200:26:02Well, I mean, it varies, right? So when you start production, you tend to do a lot more tests. So you have lower number of ports For let's say $1,000,000 of equipment, as you get with experience curve, you start and you feel comfortable, you start Decontenting the test, so you spend less time on a tester. So yes, the equipment predominantly goes into the production lines. I mean you have all these factories in China and other places that are building these modules. Speaker 200:26:34So when they start they generally use more intensive testing and then as they get more comfortable, they start reducing and doing more of a sample testing or less extensive testing per module. So that's why it's continuously moving target. So I mean, in one case, we've kind of did a one project and we have gauged it came out about $0.40 per module of CapEx per module of capacity. So if you're doing a port, you need about $0.40 investment per port On the capacity reliance, so you build a, let's say, 1,500,000 units a weak line. So you probably I mean, I think it works out to about $0.40 about $300,000 for that capacity that you got to invest. Speaker 200:27:31I mean, but it's only one data point and other people do it differently, so they spend more. I mean, so it's still very early to tell. Speaker 500:27:38Yes. So we've already seen very significant ramp in productions of both NVLink and InfiniBand products going into the AI clusters and to from what I can tell you really haven't seen any meaningful contribution from that at this point. So should we then think that as we move into the second and third phase of production ramping that The sampling rates actually go up and therefore we shouldn't be looking at the rate of growth And AI is the primary driver of the overall demand curve as opposed to the sampling percentage. Speaker 200:28:23Well, I wouldn't go that far because remember, the first thing they did is they redeployed the same lines that were building Telecom Coherent business that dropped quite significantly. So they redeployed those assets to the AI data centers. And just when you also think about it, if you're just doing alignment or like say InfiniBand, you're putting Photonic integrated circuit aligning with the processor, that is really more semiconductor packaging. When you're actually building the actual module with lasers and everything else, that's where you tend to use more of our optical test equipment. Speaker 500:29:07I see. Okay. Just going back to the telecom piece for a second. There's obviously a very large inventory glut out there of telecom equipment that has to be absorbed. Has there been any build in inventory in your product areas or is that just something that didn't happen because they weren't constrained as much on that those type of products? Speaker 200:29:33So we have no inventory in the channel. I mean pretty much the orders kind of got turned off, I'd say December quarter of calendar 2022. So if anything, a lot of the inventory in the field is getting long in a tooth. And we know that there is A lot of wear and tear and there needs to be a replacement coming up. So we're actually already seeing signs that people say, hey, I will need to replace, I mean, what would be the terms, What will be the lead times? Speaker 200:30:01So in that respect, people will kind of sweat the assets, they will swap the assets, they will cannibalize And then they'll have to do a wholesale replacement. So when I say kind of flattish 2024 or like the I just think, I just don't think I know they need to do it. I just don't know if they can afford a massive replacement. But there is a Could be a good chance that in the second half, we'll see more and more of these type of things popping out. But I don't have that kind of visibility beyond 6 months. Speaker 200:30:36Great. Thank you. Sure. Thanks. Operator00:30:40Your next question comes from the line of Meta Marshall from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Speaker 600:30:46Great. Thanks. Oleg, you mentioned kind of you were more encouraged about cable spending kind of earlier in the year. Just wanted to get a sense is that DOCSIS 4.0, is that just their networks are running hotter, just given some of the comments you just had to Alex, Just kind of what is the trigger to that investment? And then on the flip side, since you kind of think that wireless may take a little bit longer, just what do you think should be kind of the early signs of wireless resuming? Speaker 600:31:17Thanks. Speaker 200:31:19So if I look at so cable, right, first. I think the we know it's going to be happening. It was actually we were expecting some of the orders start popping up in the March quarter And then accelerating into June, from what we've heard and I'm not going to name any names, but there's been a delay in some of the core technology development by leading infrastructure providers. So I think that is being pushed by 1 to 2 quarters in terms of getting the software ready and everything needs to be working. So I think that's where we are with cable, but I do see actually cable happening this year. Speaker 200:32:01On the see what was your second part of your question? Speaker 600:32:05Just on the wireless side? Speaker 200:32:08The wireless, yes. So the wireless, we all know you've seen the Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and all the deployments with T Mobile, Verizon, AT and T. So that has slowed down. So the area where we are seeing less is on kind of the field equipment and a lot of the people sales related to deployment. What we continue to see CapEx being spent is on product development. Speaker 200:32:37So we have not seen significant decline in the R and D CapEx for 5 gs and now we're seeing some of the elements of 6 gs popping up. It's just the generally I think the wireless infrastructure is a bit more muted in terms of aggressiveness, I'd say in Europe and North America. Now that said, India is doing pretty well. But it's obviously I wish the margins were better in India, but I think clearly demand is right now India is one of the few bright spots for infrastructure deployment. Speaker 300:33:18Great. Thank you. Sure. Operator00:33:21Your next question comes from the line of Ruben Roy from Stifel. Your line is open. Speaker 700:33:28Thank you. Oleg, I just had a couple of quick questions, really follow ups. Speaker 100:33:31I think you talked about Speaker 700:33:32a little bit of this And answer to the prior questions, but just in terms of service provider, it sounded to me like you're saying that you are having conversations, Right. So, last quarter, I think you've talked about not seeing any decommits. I would imagine that that's still the case. But also, You know, with some of the service providers still figuring out their budgets for this year, is that giving you a little bit of, I wouldn't call it hope, but sort of visibility, I guess, into thinking that you can still turn out to what should be Sort of a normal seasonal year, meaning June up and then September a little bit down like usual. Is that driving that or any other detail in those conversations? Speaker 200:34:15So I think this year, I mean, I don't want to jump too far ahead, but actually September may actually be stronger this year than normal because the cable is maybe happening in September as it gets pushed, right? So but generally, I'd say what we see from service providers, there is a very healthy churns business. If things go bad and just replacements and things like that, what generally drives the like another like I'd say 20% more, which makes a big difference is whenever they are doing build outs or upgrades to their networks. And right now what I don't see, I mean at least this time in terms of the churns business, it's like orders coming in and they get released and there's no problem. The ongoing business is going pretty well. Speaker 200:35:04People are maintaining their network. They're just keeping things running. What I'm not Seeing yet is the people doing big step functions and expanding capacity or upgrading the network or extending the network. Some of these projects are a little bit more, I mean, we know they are being planned. I know there is plans for that. Speaker 200:35:24I just don't know when they're going to decide to pull the ripcord and launch it. And I just kind of looking at the general environment In the telecom sector, I think they prefer if every quarter they don't do it, they just Bank more cash and retire more debt. So I think, one if I were kind of just Looking at the firm competitive approach, as cable guys start upgrading their networks, I think some of the service providers We'll see need to get back to extending their networks. So I think I just don't want to be a killjoy, but I just don't see cash burning hole in service providers pocket So they need to go and start digging and laying new fiber or aggressively starting deployment. The area where we do see Fairly good momentum, but it's on a much smaller like an order of magnitude smaller scale. Speaker 200:36:32Are these Tier 2, Tier 3 Primarily private equity funded fiber operators who are laying fiber in anticipation of data centers coming to the area or service providers extending 5 gs networks to the area or they finally needing a fiber to extend their network into some of these rural communities. So That is one piece that is ongoing, but it's an order of magnitude smaller amount of volume than somebody like AT and T Verizon or British Telecom or Deutsche Telecom would span on an annualized basis. Speaker 700:37:08Right. Thanks for all that detail, Alek. And then just a quick follow-up for Elon. I might have missed this on the balance sheet discussion. Are you where you need to be then on leverage and do you expect Speaker 100:37:21to come back in these Speaker 700:37:21markets to repurchase in the near term? I might have missed that. Speaker 100:37:27Yes. So probably for the next quarter or 2, we'll be focused more obviously on The retiring of the convert and it continues the overall by the continues to be part of our capital allocation model, right? I mean, We are now deviating from the overall strategy, but probably on the buyback for the next 1 to 2 quarters, we'll be more muted about it. Speaker 200:37:52We just decided to bank some cash, so we can retire the whole converts. In a way, it's a synthetic share buyback Because you're avoiding dilution down the road. Speaker 400:38:04Right, right. Speaker 700:38:05Got it. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Selman. Speaker 100:38:09Thank you. Thanks. Operator00:38:11There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Ilan Daskal for some final closing remarks. Speaker 100:38:19Great. Thank you, operator. This concludes our earnings call for today, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallViavi Solutions Q2 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Viavi Solutions Earnings HeadlinesInertial Labs, a VIAVI Solutions Company, Launches Tactical-Grade MEMS IMU with 1 Deg/hr Gyro BiasMay 5 at 6:30 AM | prnewswire.comNeedham & Company LLC Reaffirms "Buy" Rating for Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV)May 5 at 1:29 AM | americanbankingnews.comThe Man I Turn to In Times Like ThisA storm is brewing in the markets: new tariffs, recession warnings, and panic in the headlines. That’s when publisher Brett Aitken turns to Whitney Tilson—a man CNBC once dubbed “The Prophet.” Tilson just released a new prediction that runs counter to what mainstream finance is telling you.May 5, 2025 | Stansberry Research (Ad)Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV) Price Target Lowered to $11.00 at UBS GroupMay 5 at 1:29 AM | americanbankingnews.comViavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV) Price Target Raised to $13.50May 5 at 1:29 AM | americanbankingnews.comB. Riley Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV) Stock PriceMay 5 at 1:29 AM | americanbankingnews.comSee More Viavi Solutions Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Viavi Solutions? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Viavi Solutions and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Viavi SolutionsViavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV), Inc. engages in the provision of network test, monitoring, and assurance solutions for communications service providers, enterprises, network equipment manufacturers, government and avionics. It operates through the following segments: Network Enablement, Service Enablement, and Optical Security and Performance. The Network Enablement segment offers an integrated portfolio of testing solutions that access the network to perform build-out and maintenance tasks. The Service Enablement segment covers solutions and services primarily for communication service providers, and enterprises that deliver and/or operate broadband and IP networks (fixed and mobile) supporting voice, video, and data services as well as a wide range of applications. The Optical Security and Performance segment leverages its core optical coating technologies and volume manufacturing capability to design, manufacture, and sell products targeting anti-counterfeiting, consumer and industrial, government, healthcare, and other markets. The company was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Chandler, AZ.View Viavi Solutions ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Is Reddit Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold After Earnings Release?Warning or Opportunity After Super Micro Computer's EarningsAmazon Earnings: 2 Reasons to Love It, 1 Reason to Be CautiousRocket Lab Braces for Q1 Earnings Amid Soaring ExpectationsMeta Takes A Bow With Q1 Earnings - Watch For Tariff Impact in Q2Palantir Earnings: 1 Bullish Signal and 1 Area of ConcernVisa Q2 Earnings Top Forecasts, Adds $30B Buyback Plan Upcoming Earnings Advanced Micro Devices (5/6/2025)American Electric Power (5/6/2025)Constellation Energy (5/6/2025)Marriott International (5/6/2025)Energy Transfer (5/6/2025)Mplx (5/6/2025)Brookfield Asset Management (5/6/2025)Arista Networks (5/6/2025)Duke Energy (5/6/2025)Zoetis (5/6/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. Start Your 30-Day Trial MarketBeat All Access Features Best-in-Class Portfolio Monitoring Get personalized stock ideas. Compare portfolio to indices. Check stock news, ratings, SEC filings, and more. Stock Ideas and Recommendations See daily stock ideas from top analysts. Receive short-term trading ideas from MarketBeat. Identify trending stocks on social media. Advanced Stock Screeners and Research Tools Use our seven stock screeners to find suitable stocks. Stay informed with MarketBeat's real-time news. Export data to Excel for personal analysis. Sign in to your free account to enjoy these benefits In-depth profiles and analysis for 20,000 public companies. Real-time analyst ratings, insider transactions, earnings data, and more. Our daily ratings and market update email newsletter. Sign in to your free account to enjoy all that MarketBeat has to offer. Sign In Create Account Your Email Address: Email Address Required Your Password: Password Required Log In or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google Forgot your password? Your Email Address: Please enter your email address. Please enter a valid email address Choose a Password: Please enter your password. Your password must be at least 8 characters long and contain at least 1 number, 1 letter, and 1 special character. Create My Account (Free) or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google By creating a free account, you agree to our terms of service. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
There are 8 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Hello, everyone. My name is Rob. Welcome to VIAVI Solutions Second Quarter Fiscal Year 20 24 Earnings 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. Operator00:00:14I'll now turn the conference over to Ilhan Dascalle, VIAVI Solutions' CFO. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:22Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to VIAVI Solutions' 2nd quarter fiscal year 2024 earnings call. My name is Ilan Daskal, VIAVI Solutions' CFO, and with me on today's call is Oleg Haykin, our President and CEO. Please note, this call will include forward looking statements about the company's financial performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations and estimations. Speaker 100:00:56We encourage you to review our most recent Annual Report and SEC filings, particularly the risk factors described in those filings. The forward looking statements, including guidance that we provided during this call, are valid only as of today. VIAVI undertakes no obligation to update these statements. Please also note that unless we state otherwise, All results discussed on this call, except revenue, are non GAAP. We reconcile these non GAAP results to our preliminary GAAP financials and discuss their usefulness and limitations in today's earnings release. Speaker 100:01:36The release as well as our supplemental earnings slides, which include historical financial tables, are available on VIAVI's website at www dotinvestor. Viavisolutions.com. Finally, we are recording today's call and will make the recording available on our website by 4:30 p. M. Pacific Time this evening. Speaker 100:01:59Now I would like to review the results of the Q2 of fiscal year 2024. Net revenue for the quarter was $254,500,000 which was above the midpoint of our guidance range $240,000,000 to $260,000,000 Revenue was up sequentially by 2.7% and on a year over year basis was down 10.5%. Operating margin for the 2nd fiscal quarter was 13.2% and exceeded the high end of our guidance range of 9.6% to 12.8%. Operating margin increased 80 basis points from the prior quarter and on a year over year basis was down 300 basis points. EPS at $0.11 exceeded the high end of our guidance range of $0.06 to 0 point 1 $0.10 and was up $0.02 sequentially and on a year over year basis was down 0 point 0 $3 Moving on to our Q2 results by business segment. Speaker 100:03:07NSE revenue for the 2nd fiscal quarter came in at $179,600,000 which is above the midpoint of our guidance range of 169 $185,000,000 On a year over year basis, revenue was down 13.3%, primarily due to lower CapEx spend by NAMs and weaker spend by service providers. NE revenue for the quarter was $155,500,000 which is a 15.2% year over year decline. SE revenue was $24,100,000 and grew 1.3% from the same period last year. NSE gross margin for the quarter was 63.4%, which is 100 basis points lower on a year over year basis. NE gross margin was 62.5%, which is a decrease of 190 basis points from the same period last year and was primarily due to a combination of product mix and lower volume. Speaker 100:04:15SE gross margin was 68.9%, which is an increase of 4 60 basis points from the same period last year and benefited from higher margin product mix. NSE's operating margin was 3.6%, which is an increase of 2 70 basis points sequentially and a decrease of 5.30 basis points on a year over year basis. NSE operating margin was above the midpoint of our guidance range of 0% to 4%. OSP revenue for the 2nd fiscal quarter came in at $74,900,000 which was at the high end of our guidance range of $71,000,000 to $75,000,000 and was down 3.2% on a year over year basis. OSP gross margin was 52.1%, which is a decrease of 20 basis points from the same period last year and was primarily due to lower volume and unfavorable product mix. Speaker 100:05:21OSP operating margin was 36.4%, which is 140 basis points lower sequentially and increased 90 basis points on a year over year basis. OSP operating margin exceeded the high end of our guidance range of 32.5 percent to 34.5%. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow. Total cash and short term investments at the end of Q2 was $571,800,000 compared to $489,700,000 in the same period last year. Cash flow from operating activities for the quarter was 20 $200,000 in the same period last year. Speaker 100:06:12We have not purchased any shares of our stock in the 2nd quarter As we plan to retire, the outstanding balance of our March 2024 convertible notes in the amount of $96,400,000 The fully diluted share count for the quarter was 223,500,000 shares, down from 227,100,000 in the prior quarter and was versus 222,000,000 shares in our guidance for the 2nd quarter. CapEx for the quarter was $5,800,000 which is $12,300,000 lower versus the same period last year when we are completing the construction of our new facility in Chandler. Moving on to our guidance. For the 3rd fiscal quarter of 2024, we expect revenue in the range of $245,000,000 and $253,000,000 Operating margin is expected to be 10.4 percent, plus or minus 160 basis points, and EPS to be between $0.05 $0.09 We expect NSE revenue to be approximately 100 and $76,000,000 plus or minus $3,000,000 with an operating margin of 1.5 percent plus or minus 150 basis points. OSP revenue is expected to be approximately $73,000,000 plusorminus1000000 dollars with an operating margin of 31.8 percent, plusorminus200 basis points. Speaker 100:07:54Our tax expenses for the Q3 are expected to be around $8,000,000 as a result of jurisdictional mix. We expect other income and expenses to reflect a net expense of approximately $3,000,000 And the share count is expected to be around 224,700,000 shares. With that, I will turn the call over to Oleg. Oleg? Speaker 200:08:19Thank you, Ilan, and welcome to your first earnings call with VIAVI. The fiscal Q2 2024 came in stronger than expected. Revenue was slightly above the midpoint of our guidance helped by stronger demand for 400 gig and 800 gig fiber, Middle Arrow and SE Products. EPS came in above the high end of our guidance driven by richer margin revenue mix and lower OpEx. In the near term, we expect stronger demand in the above product areas to help offset continued weakness in the service provider spend. Speaker 200:08:56Starting with NSE, the 2nd fiscal quarter NSE revenue came in above the midpoint of our guidance range. Although the NSE revenue declined on year over year basis, driven by a slowdown in 5 gs and fiber build outs by major service providers, There was a number of bright spots. Fiber Lab and production has continued to recover driven by strong 800 gig demand offsetting weakness in computing and storage. Aerospace and Defense products saw robust growth driven by strong demand for avionics and P and T or positioning, navigation and timing products. And the new SE products continued to perform well resulting in a slight year over year growth despite the decline in service provider spend. Speaker 200:09:41Looking ahead, we expect continued demand recovery and growth in our Fiber 11 Production, Aerospace and Defense and SC Products compensating for the continued near term weakness in the service provider spend. Now turning to OSP. OSP declines on a year over year basis primarily driven by lower demand for anti counterfeiting products. This decline was partially offset by strong 3 d sensing demand. Overall OSP results came in at higher end of our guidance range. Speaker 200:10:13In the March quarter, we expect OSP to be slightly down from the December quarter with a stronger demand for anti counterfeiting products offsetting the seasonal decline in 3 d sensing. Looking ahead to calendar 2024, we expect telecom service provider spend to continue to be soft with the notable exception of the North American cable operators. We expect cable spend to ramp in the middle or second half of calendar year twenty twenty four. That said, our strategy in the past 6 years to diversify outside the service providers into 11 production and aerospace and defense makes it easier to ride out the telecom cycle downturn. 11 production spend is seeing a faster recovery versus service providers driven by the demand for the new technologies such as 800 gig and Open RAN. Speaker 200:11:04Recently, PIAVI was awarded a $21,700,000 grant by NTIA to create an advanced test lab to empower and accelerate the development of Open RAN technologies and components. These awards reflect VIAVI's technology leadership in 5 gs, upcoming 6 gs and Aura. Our aerospace and defense products are seeing strong demand and growth driven by the next gen avionics and the need to protect critical infrastructure and assets against jamming, spoofing and cyber warfare. In conclusion, I'd like to thank my VIAVI team for managing in this challenging environment and express my appreciation to our employees, customers and shareholders for their support. With that, I will now turn it back to the operator and Q and A. Operator00:12:03And your first question comes from the line of Michael Genovese from Rosenblatt. Your line is open. Speaker 300:12:10Great. Thanks a lot. All I got, first question is just on the service provider market, just to understand, make sure I heard the comments right. It sounds like you're saying all of 'twenty four calendar expects to be weak there, with cable getting better at the end of the year. First of all, did I hear that right? Speaker 300:12:28And secondly, did your expectations change in the last 3 months? Has the carrier stuff, the telecom stuff gotten More pushed out or was that consistent with 3 months ago? Speaker 200:12:41Well, so here, let me just say, look, Reality is I don't know what the second half is going to look like from service providers. We know the demand will be somewhat stronger in the June quarter. It's always stronger. Beyond that, I just think, I mean, clearly it's not getting any worse, it's getting a little better. But I would still prefer to think of it as a flat to slightly recovering as the kind of more suprandy because I think They're still pretty weak. Speaker 200:13:13But the point is we're seeing it's coming in, but it's not as dramatic as I would have liked to see. Now the area that is stronger is the cable. In fact, we were expecting cable to start spending and coming in, in the first half of calendar year. But As you probably know, there were some delays driven by technology readiness in deploying the GAA architecture by some of the vendors and as such the ramp is being pushed by 1 or 2 quarters. So We know it's coming. Speaker 200:13:45We're already seeing some orders, but the spike that we were expecting in the March quarter got pushed out. That's why we are guiding March quarter flat to slightly down. It was going to be slightly up In the absence of that slowdown, I mean, let's put it this way, I feel a lot better about the environment in which we're operating than we were Even a quarter or 2 quarters ago, I just don't want to get ahead of our skis on service provider recovery because When I see it, I'll believe it. I mean, so I think they still got a lot of balance sheet issues they need to address before they really start spending significantly. Speaker 300:14:28Okay. That's like Speaker 200:14:29So just take it as an abundance of caution. I mean, do I feel better about what's going on? The answer is yes. Am I seeing big dollars coming in? The answer is no. Speaker 200:14:41Now one thing is what we did see interesting is we're seeing pretty good traction on our service enablement products with the new architecture AI ops, which drive OpEx reduction and things like Capital avoidance, so there we are seeing a pretty good traction. But on the instrumentation, particularly with fiber deployment, I think there is pause that may at least last 6 months. Maybe towards the second half of the year things will get better. But at this point, I think it's My crystal ball is telling me I'm not seeing anything dramatic changing. Speaker 300:15:17Understand, understand. Great. Next question, This 800 gs Fiber Lab in production sounds very interesting. And I think you've probably had either 2 or 3 quarters of sort of measurable revenues there. So I assume that that is Increasing and any color you can give us on that? Speaker 300:15:39And not sure whether you would answer this question, but sort of how much of any That represents either now or what it could be in the future would be very helpful. Speaker 200:15:52Well, so I mean our 11 production business, I would say on any let's see, If I think about the we have a network enablement and the SC, so network enablement is about 87%. I'd say Our 11 production is I think it but it also includes wireless, it's about 40%. So And of that, I'd say Fiber Lab and kind of compute high performance computing is roughly half of that, right? So maybe 20%. And now with the storage being a slowdown, we saw the computing and storage was weaker. Speaker 200:16:37I mean, all of that business really kind of bottomed out around the June quarter. But what's really been driving the recovery of that business is the fiber production and the fiber lab demand and it's driven by 408 100 gig products, right. So I think so what I'd say is, it's now First of all, it's recovering continue to grow. I think the same players who are building telecom modules and now recently these AI data center modules are buying the equipment. I've been trying to ascertain like for so many 1,000,000 ports how much equipment is being bought. Speaker 200:17:27I think we're probably not there in terms of truly understanding how the CapEx spend is linked to that because it's still early in the game. But exactly same equipment that they use on the coherent telecom module line, They're using it also on building the data center modules for the AI applications. Speaker 300:17:53Great. Yes, it sounds like going forward that will be interesting to figure that out, That relationship, I can't wait to get an update on that. Okay, last question for me. I'm sorry to take so much time. But I'd like to ask Lon, a question, which is can you just help me understand the because the revenues were pretty good for the quarter, the earnings were good, the revenue guidance is good. Speaker 300:18:17I'm just still not seeing the reason why the EPS guidance is lower. So could you explain that to me? Speaker 100:18:24Sure. Thanks for the question. So as you know, our 3rd fiscal quarter from a seasonality perspective is usually kind of Slower than the Q2, so if you think about it on a consecutive basis. Then also when you have kind of the beginning of the calendar year, There's some incremental cost associated with employee related, and that kind of drives kind of in terms of the OpEx. But again, as Oleg mentioned earlier, the traditional seasonality when you think about it, It's kind of building up really nicely when you think about the rest of the year, including the Q4. Speaker 200:19:08Yes. So there's a lot of statutory cost accrual that happens in the Q1 of the calendar year. And On the OSP, you noticed there is a lower margin because it's a cyclicality of a 3 d sensing. The second half of the fiscal year is a much lower utilization, so there is more under absorption in that respect. Now that said, The anti counterfeiting is coming back, so it's offset some of it, but not all of it. Speaker 200:19:37And last quarter, the 3 d sensing was quite strong. Speaker 300:19:42Okay, great. Thanks so much for all the answers to the question. Thanks again. Speaker 100:19:46Thank you. Operator00:19:48Your next question comes from the line of Tim Savageaux from Northland Capital. Your line is open. Tim, your line is open. Speaker 400:20:02Okay. Figured it out. Good afternoon. Oleg, can you remind us of your lead times In service provider fiber test? Speaker 200:20:17Generally, if we get an order, I'd say within 2 months we can turn it around. So it's all within a quarter more or less. Now except for some Things like if it's a some products are very quick like for example, fiber scope and things like that. Other products like where you're buying a whole bench, where you have a MEMS switches and things like that, if we have them in inventory, we can turn it around within, I'd say, 2 to 3 months. Speaker 400:20:50And where would you assess your service provider Inventories to be with your product? Speaker 200:20:590. I mean, it's all just in time. Speaker 400:21:05Right. And I guess the reason I ask you this is that Throughout the early part of reports here from both some of your bigger peers, Corning, Nokia, as well as some of the bigger service providers, We have seen some early indications of project based kind of Increases in plans for 2024. And I'm just trying to reconcile what's been a pretty consistent drumbeat here With what we're hearing from you, and I think there could be typically you lead these things, but I don't know. Might you lag at this point because of the lead times? I wonder. Speaker 400:21:51No. I don't think so. Are you seeing some of the same things? Speaker 200:21:55I don't think we're looking. Once they decide and when they tell these guys they're going to do a project, they may tell it to them before they tell us. Once they are ready to start building, they just place an order and within 2 months they get their equipment. It's pretty quick. Speaker 300:22:16Makes sense. I'll pass it along. Operator00:22:20Your next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson from Needham and Company. Your line is open. Speaker 500:22:27Thanks. Can you give us a little bit more granularity on the size of the 3 d sensing in the quarter and The expectation for the 3 d sensing in the March quarter? Speaker 200:22:41Well, so generally, Alex, 3 gs sensing, half of the annual demand comes in, in the September December quarter sorry, 2 thirds comes in, in the September December quarter and 1 third comes in the March and the June quarter. So I would say we ran right around $20,000,000 $25,000,000 in the quarter. Speaker 500:23:09And so in the upcoming quarter, you're looking at what $10,000,000 or so? Speaker 200:23:16This quarter? I think maybe a little more than 10, but Yes, it's about it's around It's $10,000,000 plusminus $1,500,000 Speaker 500:23:35And can you give us an update on the plant in Phoenix? It's now Fully operational, all of the benefits of the cost improvement are in the mechanics of the Counter fitting business at this point, is that correct? Speaker 200:23:52Yes. So, what we are seeing now, so That's when you know where people are running out of inventory. So you start seeing a lot of unforecasted spot orders popping up like hurry up and ship as soon as you can. So we're starting to see more and more of these type of things popping up. They're not big orders, But it's telling us the inventory is starting to deplete itself in the channel. Speaker 200:24:20So in the March quarter, We're expecting a little bit stronger demand from what we were thinking maybe even 3 months ago. So that's actually helping us to offset some of the 3 d sensing decline quarter on quarter? Speaker 100:24:37Generally, it is fully operational and we still have More capacity for additional growth there. So it's not in terms of full utilization, it's not yet there in terms of the availability that we can get. Speaker 500:24:54Fully operational, but not fully capacity, right, of course. Speaker 200:24:59Alex, let me give you a correction. Actually, 3 gs sensing is going to be closer about $16,000,000 in this quarter. Speaker 500:25:0616. Perfect. Thanks. Speaker 200:25:08Yes. I was thinking at the end of the year. Speaker 500:25:12So going back to this Split on the 800 gig products, just to be clear. So the ratio of ports to equipment is Quite low, right? I mean, we're talking about double digit port per kind of ratio there. I assume That this is predominantly going into the production side of it. It's not going into the field deployment. Speaker 500:25:40And you're talking about how many Products can go through a test and measurement process in any given period, but that's sampling process. So the ratio is very, very high relative to the total number of ports that go across that equipment, right? Speaker 200:26:02Well, I mean, it varies, right? So when you start production, you tend to do a lot more tests. So you have lower number of ports For let's say $1,000,000 of equipment, as you get with experience curve, you start and you feel comfortable, you start Decontenting the test, so you spend less time on a tester. So yes, the equipment predominantly goes into the production lines. I mean you have all these factories in China and other places that are building these modules. Speaker 200:26:34So when they start they generally use more intensive testing and then as they get more comfortable, they start reducing and doing more of a sample testing or less extensive testing per module. So that's why it's continuously moving target. So I mean, in one case, we've kind of did a one project and we have gauged it came out about $0.40 per module of CapEx per module of capacity. So if you're doing a port, you need about $0.40 investment per port On the capacity reliance, so you build a, let's say, 1,500,000 units a weak line. So you probably I mean, I think it works out to about $0.40 about $300,000 for that capacity that you got to invest. Speaker 200:27:31I mean, but it's only one data point and other people do it differently, so they spend more. I mean, so it's still very early to tell. Speaker 500:27:38Yes. So we've already seen very significant ramp in productions of both NVLink and InfiniBand products going into the AI clusters and to from what I can tell you really haven't seen any meaningful contribution from that at this point. So should we then think that as we move into the second and third phase of production ramping that The sampling rates actually go up and therefore we shouldn't be looking at the rate of growth And AI is the primary driver of the overall demand curve as opposed to the sampling percentage. Speaker 200:28:23Well, I wouldn't go that far because remember, the first thing they did is they redeployed the same lines that were building Telecom Coherent business that dropped quite significantly. So they redeployed those assets to the AI data centers. And just when you also think about it, if you're just doing alignment or like say InfiniBand, you're putting Photonic integrated circuit aligning with the processor, that is really more semiconductor packaging. When you're actually building the actual module with lasers and everything else, that's where you tend to use more of our optical test equipment. Speaker 500:29:07I see. Okay. Just going back to the telecom piece for a second. There's obviously a very large inventory glut out there of telecom equipment that has to be absorbed. Has there been any build in inventory in your product areas or is that just something that didn't happen because they weren't constrained as much on that those type of products? Speaker 200:29:33So we have no inventory in the channel. I mean pretty much the orders kind of got turned off, I'd say December quarter of calendar 2022. So if anything, a lot of the inventory in the field is getting long in a tooth. And we know that there is A lot of wear and tear and there needs to be a replacement coming up. So we're actually already seeing signs that people say, hey, I will need to replace, I mean, what would be the terms, What will be the lead times? Speaker 200:30:01So in that respect, people will kind of sweat the assets, they will swap the assets, they will cannibalize And then they'll have to do a wholesale replacement. So when I say kind of flattish 2024 or like the I just think, I just don't think I know they need to do it. I just don't know if they can afford a massive replacement. But there is a Could be a good chance that in the second half, we'll see more and more of these type of things popping out. But I don't have that kind of visibility beyond 6 months. Speaker 200:30:36Great. Thank you. Sure. Thanks. Operator00:30:40Your next question comes from the line of Meta Marshall from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Speaker 600:30:46Great. Thanks. Oleg, you mentioned kind of you were more encouraged about cable spending kind of earlier in the year. Just wanted to get a sense is that DOCSIS 4.0, is that just their networks are running hotter, just given some of the comments you just had to Alex, Just kind of what is the trigger to that investment? And then on the flip side, since you kind of think that wireless may take a little bit longer, just what do you think should be kind of the early signs of wireless resuming? Speaker 600:31:17Thanks. Speaker 200:31:19So if I look at so cable, right, first. I think the we know it's going to be happening. It was actually we were expecting some of the orders start popping up in the March quarter And then accelerating into June, from what we've heard and I'm not going to name any names, but there's been a delay in some of the core technology development by leading infrastructure providers. So I think that is being pushed by 1 to 2 quarters in terms of getting the software ready and everything needs to be working. So I think that's where we are with cable, but I do see actually cable happening this year. Speaker 200:32:01On the see what was your second part of your question? Speaker 600:32:05Just on the wireless side? Speaker 200:32:08The wireless, yes. So the wireless, we all know you've seen the Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and all the deployments with T Mobile, Verizon, AT and T. So that has slowed down. So the area where we are seeing less is on kind of the field equipment and a lot of the people sales related to deployment. What we continue to see CapEx being spent is on product development. Speaker 200:32:37So we have not seen significant decline in the R and D CapEx for 5 gs and now we're seeing some of the elements of 6 gs popping up. It's just the generally I think the wireless infrastructure is a bit more muted in terms of aggressiveness, I'd say in Europe and North America. Now that said, India is doing pretty well. But it's obviously I wish the margins were better in India, but I think clearly demand is right now India is one of the few bright spots for infrastructure deployment. Speaker 300:33:18Great. Thank you. Sure. Operator00:33:21Your next question comes from the line of Ruben Roy from Stifel. Your line is open. Speaker 700:33:28Thank you. Oleg, I just had a couple of quick questions, really follow ups. Speaker 100:33:31I think you talked about Speaker 700:33:32a little bit of this And answer to the prior questions, but just in terms of service provider, it sounded to me like you're saying that you are having conversations, Right. So, last quarter, I think you've talked about not seeing any decommits. I would imagine that that's still the case. But also, You know, with some of the service providers still figuring out their budgets for this year, is that giving you a little bit of, I wouldn't call it hope, but sort of visibility, I guess, into thinking that you can still turn out to what should be Sort of a normal seasonal year, meaning June up and then September a little bit down like usual. Is that driving that or any other detail in those conversations? Speaker 200:34:15So I think this year, I mean, I don't want to jump too far ahead, but actually September may actually be stronger this year than normal because the cable is maybe happening in September as it gets pushed, right? So but generally, I'd say what we see from service providers, there is a very healthy churns business. If things go bad and just replacements and things like that, what generally drives the like another like I'd say 20% more, which makes a big difference is whenever they are doing build outs or upgrades to their networks. And right now what I don't see, I mean at least this time in terms of the churns business, it's like orders coming in and they get released and there's no problem. The ongoing business is going pretty well. Speaker 200:35:04People are maintaining their network. They're just keeping things running. What I'm not Seeing yet is the people doing big step functions and expanding capacity or upgrading the network or extending the network. Some of these projects are a little bit more, I mean, we know they are being planned. I know there is plans for that. Speaker 200:35:24I just don't know when they're going to decide to pull the ripcord and launch it. And I just kind of looking at the general environment In the telecom sector, I think they prefer if every quarter they don't do it, they just Bank more cash and retire more debt. So I think, one if I were kind of just Looking at the firm competitive approach, as cable guys start upgrading their networks, I think some of the service providers We'll see need to get back to extending their networks. So I think I just don't want to be a killjoy, but I just don't see cash burning hole in service providers pocket So they need to go and start digging and laying new fiber or aggressively starting deployment. The area where we do see Fairly good momentum, but it's on a much smaller like an order of magnitude smaller scale. Speaker 200:36:32Are these Tier 2, Tier 3 Primarily private equity funded fiber operators who are laying fiber in anticipation of data centers coming to the area or service providers extending 5 gs networks to the area or they finally needing a fiber to extend their network into some of these rural communities. So That is one piece that is ongoing, but it's an order of magnitude smaller amount of volume than somebody like AT and T Verizon or British Telecom or Deutsche Telecom would span on an annualized basis. Speaker 700:37:08Right. Thanks for all that detail, Alek. And then just a quick follow-up for Elon. I might have missed this on the balance sheet discussion. Are you where you need to be then on leverage and do you expect Speaker 100:37:21to come back in these Speaker 700:37:21markets to repurchase in the near term? I might have missed that. Speaker 100:37:27Yes. So probably for the next quarter or 2, we'll be focused more obviously on The retiring of the convert and it continues the overall by the continues to be part of our capital allocation model, right? I mean, We are now deviating from the overall strategy, but probably on the buyback for the next 1 to 2 quarters, we'll be more muted about it. Speaker 200:37:52We just decided to bank some cash, so we can retire the whole converts. In a way, it's a synthetic share buyback Because you're avoiding dilution down the road. Speaker 400:38:04Right, right. Speaker 700:38:05Got it. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Selman. Speaker 100:38:09Thank you. Thanks. Operator00:38:11There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Ilan Daskal for some final closing remarks. Speaker 100:38:19Great. Thank you, operator. This concludes our earnings call for today, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call.Read morePowered by