Silicon Laboratories Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 24, 2024

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you

Speaker 1

for standing by. My name is Jonathan. I will be your conference operator today. Welcome to Silicon Labs' First Quarter Fiscal 20 24 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode.

Speaker 1

After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Giovanni Pacelli, Silicon Labs' Senior Director of Finance. Giovanni, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jonathan, and good morning, everyone. We are recording this meeting and a replay will be available for 4 weeks on the Investor Relations section of our website at investor. Silabs.com. Our earnings press release and the accompanying financial tables are also available on our website. Joining me today are Silicon Labs' President and Chief Officer, Matt Johnson and Interim Chief Financial Officer, Mark Malden.

Speaker 2

They will discuss our Q1 financial performance and review recent business activities. We'll take questions after our prepared comments, and our remarks today will include forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We base these forward looking statements on information available to us as of the date of this conference call and assume no obligation to update these statements in the future. We encourage you to review our SEC filings, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward looking statements. Additionally, during our call today, we will refer to certain non GAAP financial information.

Speaker 2

A reconciliation of our GAAP to non GAAP results is included in the company's earnings press release and on the Investor Relations section of our website. I'll now turn

Operator

the call over to Silicon Labs' Chief Executive Officer, Matt Johnson. Matt? Thanks, Giovanni, and good morning, everyone. Silicon Labs reported solid Q1 results with revenue and EPS exceeding the midpoint of our guidance. We are confident that Q4 represented the trough for us and we expect revenue growth to accelerate from Q1 into Q2.

Operator

Based on a sampling of our top customers, we believe they have made further progress in reducing excess inventory in the quarter. We also continue to see steady improvement in our weekly bookings levels, although still below the level we'd like to see. On a unit basis, channel inventory remains very low, decreasing again in the quarter. We're working closely with our distribution partners and key customers to manage lead times and increase order visibility as the demand environment begins to improve. I'm also incredibly excited about the senior leadership announcements that I will cover later in the call.

Operator

Now I'll hand it over to Mark for the financial update. Mark?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. First quarter revenue came in at $106,000,000 above the midpoint of our guidance and up 23% sequentially. Revenue was up for both business units. The industrial and commercial business ended at $65,000,000 up 9% sequentially with the broad industrial category experiencing the largest increase in the quarter. Home and life revenue was up 51% sequentially at $41,000,000 driven by a rebound at smart home, particularly in home security applications.

Speaker 3

We are well positioned in the home and life markets as market initiatives such as mattered enabled ecosystems and connected health gain further traction. Overall, ASPs were about flat compared to the prior quarter and unit volume was up. Our regional revenue mix was also consistent in the quarter with EMEA and the Americas slightly outpacing APAC. Distribution revenue mix was about 66% for the Q1, up from last quarter, but still below our typical levels. Channel inventory decreased to 61 days.

Speaker 3

On a unit basis, channel inventory was down almost 25% sequentially and 50% year over year. As Matt mentioned, we are working closely with our distribution partners and customers to bring order patterns within our standard lead times to improve demand visibility as the market recovers. Non GAAP gross margin ended in line with guidance 52%. As expected, customer mix was the largest headwind on our gross margin along with the impact of fixed costs over the lower revenue levels. We expect gross margin to increase toward targeted model as revenue further recovers.

Speaker 3

Non GAAP operating expenses of $94,000,000 were better than expected, largely due to slower than expected hiring and discretionary spending. Non GAAP operating loss was $39,000,000 and our non GAAP effective tax rate was 20%. Non GAAP loss of $0.92 was at the top end of our guidance range, mainly driven by the OpEx favorability. On a GAAP basis, gross margin ended at 52%. GAAP operating expenses were $114,000,000 which was also better than expected.

Speaker 3

GAAP operating loss was $59,000,000 for the Q1. GAAP loss per share was 1 point $7.7 for the Q1, above the top end

Speaker 4

of our

Speaker 3

guide. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the year with cash and investments of $333,000,000 We repaid the $45,000,000 outstanding on our revolving credit facility in the quarter and have no outstanding debt. Our DSO was approximately 30 days and we continue to see no customer credit concerns. Our internal inventory was up slightly in Q1 at 190 $8,000,000 Inventory turns ended at one time and we expect this represents our peak inventory level for the year.

Speaker 3

Importantly, the die bank inventory we strategically built over the past year positions us to address the channel efficiently as end market demand improves. Before returning the call to Matt, I will cover guidance for the Q2. We expect revenue for the 2nd quarter to be in the range of $135,000,000 to $145,000,000 We anticipate both business units to be up sequentially. We expect non GAAP gross margin in the 2nd quarter to be approximately 53%. The gross margin for this quarter continues to reflect a temporary customer mix shift away from the channel and toward direct customers as distribution partners work to further reduce their inventory.

Speaker 3

We expect non GAAP operating expenses in the 2nd quarter to be approximately $102,000,000 and the non GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 20%. Our non GAAP loss per share for Q2 is expected to be in the range of $0.58 to $0.70 On a GAAP basis, we expect gross margins to be 53%. We expect GAAP operating expenses to be approximately $125,000,000 and GAAP loss per share to be between $1.45 to 1 $0.61 I will now turn the call back over to Matt. Matt?

Operator

Thanks, Mark. We continue to gain share in both home and life and industrial and commercial end markets with our industry leading power efficiency, security and RF performance as well as our leadership position in matter. Last quarter in our home business, we highlighted the release of Matter 1.2 by the CSA, which expands Matter's reach to include smart TVs, white goods and gateways. Matter 1.2 also extends Wi Fi connectivity to a wider array of home devices such as appliances, home security systems and automation products, including battery powered cameras, switches, sensors and window shades. As consumer interest and interoperability intensifies, more customers are embracing matter enabled ecosystems.

Operator

Silicon Labs remains a trusted partner in this rapidly expanding market. Our commitment to building matter infrastructure has well positioned both Silicon Labs and Thread technology moving forward. As an example of this, we are actively working with 24 of the 26 major ISPs in North America and Europe that are integrating Matter into their solutions. Earlier this month at Embedded World, we continued to build out our Series 2 platform with the unveiling of the XG26, our most advanced multiprotocol wireless device family yet, engineered to future proof IoT technology. This new family ensures that manufacturers' current designs can keep pace for the escalating demand of sophisticated IoT applications.

Operator

The XC26 enhances performance with advanced compute capabilities, embedded AI ML acceleration for energy efficient battery powered devices, top tier security, 2.4 gigahertz wireless connectivity, twice the flash and RAM and support for wireless protocols such as matter, Bluetooth low energy and multi protocol and threat. Additionally, with Amazon Sidewalk moving through its initial rollout phases, we are driving partnerships with manufacturers to facilitate their wireless development within this growing ecosystem. Though Amazon Sidewalk is still in the very early stages, we secured a design win in the quarter with 1 of North America's leading hot water heater manufacturers providing a Wi Fi dual band solution with Matter and Amazon Sidewalk capability. This win was directly related to our being a key Amazon partner on the development and rollout of Sidewalk, enabling us to leverage our technology leadership as the Sidewalk ecosystem continues expanding. In our life business, we are excited to see further global expansion of our continuous glucose monitoring solutions.

Operator

As an example, we have secured additional APAC design wins in the quarter for more than a dozen total design wins in the region, a few of which are starting their ramps in the quarter. In the industrial end markets, the integration of machine learning at the edge is proving essential. As a reminder, we have multiple wireless SoCs in production with industry leading integrated AIML capability. Our customers are enhancing the efficiency of connected equipment with wireless connectivity for applications such as predictive maintenance. We recently secured a design win with a leading connected equipment provider in the construction industry to facilitate real time data sensing, while also enhancing vehicle safety with rear seat monitoring technologies.

Operator

In the smart access sector, Chamberlain Group, a global leader in intelligent access has chosen our F2208 device for their 11,000,000 plus MyQ users because of its superior compute power and greater performance that delivers a more reliable user experience. Our position at smart cities remains strong, particularly in the metering sector where wireless communication is making electric grids more efficient and sustainable. We are actively involved in developing solutions for load disaggregation or non intrusive load monitoring that are maintaining our leadership in smart meter across various regions. In the commercial domain, we are tapping into retail automation trends such as electronic shelf labeling where emerging technologies like shelf cameras and standalone sensors. While the overall market penetration for electronic shelf labeling is still nascent, our multi protocol solutions and design wins in this area reinforce our belief that this market will be an additional growth engine for us driven by expanding deployments globally.

Operator

Looking ahead, we are strategically allocating resources to initiatives that bolster our long term growth and scalability. The rollout of Series 2 continues to progress well, like the XT-twenty 6 that we just announced and is contributing significantly to our current and future growth. At the same time, the development of Series 3 continues in parallel, helping position us for an even stronger future. We will begin sampling Series 3 to Alpha customers this quarter. Series 3 introduces industry leading wireless performance, compute and scalability on a multi radio platform and a unified code base that will support over 30 new wireless SoCs.

Operator

I want to thank Mark for stepping in as interim CFO during the CFO transition and I look forward to Dean Butler joining us on May 15. We also announced 2 additional leadership appointments. Bob Conrad, a longtime industry veteran is stepping down from our Board of Directors to become our SVP of Worldwide Operations. Bob's expertise in rapidly scaling semiconductor businesses will be critical as we position to scale even faster. Additionally, Radhika Chenakeshavula joined Silicon Labs as our new Chief Information Officer.

Operator

Radhika will oversee IT operations, enterprise applications, data analytics and critical digital transformation initiatives. I would also like to thank Sandeep Kumar for his role in leading our worldwide operations team for the last 18 years. Sandeep has been pivotal in leading Silicon Labs' operational strategies, including during the recent supply chain crisis. I would also like to express my gratitude to Karuna Anapajala for her leadership in our organization over the last 4 years. Looking ahead, we remain laser focused on executing on our new Series 2 and Series 3 products, driving design wins and continuing to accelerate our position.

Operator

As excess inventory at our customers corrects, our design wins ramp and end market demand improves, we're well positioned to drive revenue and profit growth throughout 2024 and beyond. I'll now hand it back over to Giovanni for Q and A. Thanks, Matt. Before we open the call for

Speaker 2

Q and A, I'd like to announce our participation in JPMorgan's Global TMT Conference in Boston on May 21st and Stifel's 2024 Cross Sector Insight Conference in Boston in early June. We'll now open up the call for questions. To accommodate as many people as possible before the market opens, I ask that you limit your time to one question and one follow-up. Jonathan?

Speaker 1

Certainly. And our first question comes from the line of Matt Ramsay from TD Cowen. Your question please.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thank you very much. Good morning everybody. Matt, I wanted to I mean, we're obviously going through the bottoming and now the beginning of the recovery. And you made some I think you guys made some comments in the script about, maybe a little bit more mix toward direct sales versus the channel for this interim period.

Speaker 5

And I guess that makes sense as the customers that are supported by the channel drain their own inventory. So I guess my question is, in the prior few months, how much more visibility have you gotten to customer level inventories that are supported by the channel? And I don't know if you can give any anecdotes as to what you're hearing by either by end marketer or by geo as to how the direct sort of the customer inventory behind the channel is trending, that'd be really helpful.

Operator

Yes, sure. Thanks, Matt. So quick answer is end customer inventory and channel distribution inventory are both moving in the right direction and down is the fastest way to say it. In terms of end customer inventory, our approach has been to sample our top customers and pretty extensively now given what we've been through. And we see a consistent trend, Matt, is the fastest way I can say it that from December to January, January to now, we've seen both the average of excess inventory working down as well as the count of customers who have excess inventory.

Operator

So it is not fully corrected. And easy way to say that is this revenue level that we're guiding is not indicative of our consumption, But we continue to see it moving in a good direction and we like the progress we're seeing and the same for disty inventory. I'd say disty inventory is I don't think we want that to go lower now. I'd say that's fully corrected. But end customers moving in the right direction, but not there yet.

Speaker 5

Got it. Note that. A couple of things to follow-up there, Matt. I think the first one being, do you feel like coming out of this, you'll have built maybe deeper relationships, more visibility of relationships that you might have the company might have over the next 2, 3, 4 years, whatever, more visibility into customer level, inventory levels behind the channel? I don't know.

Speaker 5

I'm just trying to figure out if this whole thing you guys going through with your partners has led to any permanent difference in visibility? And I guess my last question completely unrelated, you mentioned you might sample Series 3 to a few lead customers in the quarter. Any thoughts or anecdotes about which industries or what type of applications or anything like that that we could get some insights to because that's a pretty big milestone? Thanks.

Operator

Yes. So the first piece, Matt, quick answer is absolutely yes on stronger relationships and more visibility. Easy way to say it is going through these things, it's been a tough cycle and that builds the relationship. I guess it can also work the other way, but what we've seen, whether it was a supply chain crisis or this inventory crisis, relationships got stronger and those partnerships got stronger. So that I can say that was high confidence.

Operator

And I also can say with high confidence, our approach and visibility to inventory has improved. As you all know, there's not an easy approach there to report like we can do with obviously internal or distribution inventory. But we've learned a lot through this cycle and we've gotten, I think, much better at being able to see it, understand it and navigate it. So quick answer there is yes. Series 3, we're not sharing those customers.

Operator

We are sampling, which is exciting. It's a big milestone. I would encourage people to remember that Series 2 is still relatively early days in its cycle and ramp. And at the same time, we're already introducing our next generation. So it's going to be just to be blunt, Matt, it's going to be a difficult message for our investors that both are doing really well and both are progressing and that the game has long for both.

Operator

But at the end of the day, the combination positions us extremely well and we're happy with the progress on both.

Speaker 5

Thanks very much for the time, Matt. Appreciate it.

Operator

Yes.

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Gary Mobley from Wells Fargo Securities. Your question please.

Speaker 6

Good morning guys. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Matt, you're on record in a public venue back in March saying that you think your end customer consumption level, I think, related to the Q1 was about $160,000,000 So perhaps you undershipped the channel by $50,000,000 And hopefully that $160,000,000 end consumption level is a target that's moving up into the right. And so my question is, based on the June quarter revenue guide of $140,000,000 by how much are you under shipping and customer demand in the current period?

Operator

Yes. Thanks, Gary, for reminding me of the record. So the quick answer is what we said was, we see consumption at least 160 as a data point there. And we didn't say it was at 160, we said it was at least at that number. So that was the data point we provided.

Operator

So easy way to think about it on as I said earlier to the previous question, we are seeing revenue at 140 is not indicative of consumption. And as we said in that conference, we think it's higher or at least 160 as an easy way to think of it. So I don't think you can get to the math based on that of exactly what consumption is and exactly how much end customer inventory remains. But easy way to say it, they're going in the right direction. End inventory is going down, revenues going up, getting closer to consumption, but still a ways to go.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you. And as a way to get a supporting metric for future revenue growth, Hopefully, I have this number at your fingertips, but I'm curious what the measure of lifetime value of design wins captured from the Q1 may have been. And then embedded within that, what the pricing trends were like in those design wins on a like for like product basis or maybe even considering any sort of ASP shift associated with Gen 2?

Operator

Sure. Yes, I don't have all that off top of my head. Quick answers, I think on actually in the correct me if I'm wrong guys, in the quarter, I think pricing on a like for like basis was basically flat. On design wins, no changes there, good progress and on track. And in terms of pricing on design wins, as we've communicated, no changes there that that's where we see more pricing pressure is on new business, not on existing business and we expect that to continue.

Operator

But what we're seeing there is what I define as more typical and expected and it almost looks scary. I mean, I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but we're kind of getting back to kind of pre pandemic type of behaviors on pricing, which means low to mid single digit pricing pressure on an annual basis, which is what we've always had. And we've always offset that with new products, new features, differentiation. So I wouldn't say we're there yet, but that appears to be where things are going.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Tore Svanberg from Stifel. Your question please.

Speaker 7

Yes, thank you and congratulations on the continuous recovery here. So Matt, obviously consumption is a number that we have to decide at some point. But I just want to sort of understand now that you've gone through the up cycle and down cycle and as we think about the consumption number, is the thought here that the business would grow about 20% going forward longer term? Just wanted to make sure that nothing's really changed with the up cycle and the down cycle fundamentally.

Operator

Yes, sure. So for a quick answer is no change. Our commitment to the 20% compound annual growth on our revenue has not changed. That is our target, our model. We see the path to doing that and we feel really good about that.

Operator

So that's the fast answer. A couple of things that are worth mentioning, we're not doing a victory lap at a 140 guide, right? That we are doing the things that we believe we said we do that we can grow revenue, we're improving gross margin, improving profitability, that happened in Q1, that's going to happen in Q2 and we can continue doing that. But we're far from out of this at 140, right? There's still a big gap to our consumption levels and we also need to see a lot of design wins ramping, which is starting, which is encouraging and we need to see the end market show more strength.

Operator

So we're trying to reflect, we're very encouraged by the process, progress, things are going in the right direction, all signs are encouraging, but we're still in a pretty big hole and we get a ways to go. So we're not celebrating 140, we'll be celebrating that much bigger numbers. Great.

Speaker 7

And as my follow-up, beyond the cyclicality stuff, you've sort of highlighted at least 3 big growth engines this year. You mentioned some of the script, right? But the glucose meter, the smart meter and also the shelf labeling, any more details you could add on those 3 as far as ramps, types of customers, regions and so on and so forth?

Operator

Yes, sure. So nothing meaningful beyond what's the script, Tory, except I'd say to be clear, all three of those segments are ramping for us in 2024. That's important. And that's encouraging because that gives us growth beyond inventory destocking and whatever the end market demand dynamic ends up being.

Speaker 7

Excellent. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Thomas O'Malley from Barclays. Your question please.

Speaker 8

Hey guys, good morning and thanks for taking my question. Just a model squarely first and then a question off that. What was the percentage split between the two businesses in March? What are you guys assuming for June? And then can you talk to the linearity?

Speaker 8

Obviously, it looks like the disty channel is getting a little bit disty is getting better, channel is getting better even in customers improving. Can you just talk about the linearity of what you see right now in terms of revenue as you progress on throughout the year? Thank

Speaker 2

you. Tom, it's Giovanni. I'll take the first part. Revenue as between the BDUs for Q1, so it was 65 for the industrial and commercial business unit, about 40, 41 for home and life. And I'll let Mark pick up on the linearity as we get through the year.

Speaker 3

Well, I think what we said in the script that we would expect both business units to continue to grow during the year, We're not providing specific guidance for each business unit for the Q2.

Operator

Yes. I mean, maybe a way to think about it, Thomas, is in general terms, I'd characterize home and life as further through the cycle. Industrial and commercial still absolutely going in the right direction, but not as far through the cycle. I think that's important. And then in terms of inventory, I would definitely say that Q1 represents the peak for us in internal inventory that we have intentionally built to be ready for what's coming in as we move forward from here.

Operator

So that's one. And as we've said, external inventory at our distributors and at our end customers is working down and continues to work down. So I think the next piece is disty inventory. We've assumed that that's going to be flat, but at some point distributors are trying to work it down. At some point, that's going to start coming up as we see increases in demand in the channel, as their end inventory works down and as they just start to ramp new designs and market strength continues, but we're not assuming that in our guidance right now.

Speaker 8

Helpful. And then just on the gross margin side, as you see a normalization of your percent sales to kind of just being direct with direct coming back a bit down, How much do you have baked in for that normalization in the June quarter? And how quickly do you see that happening? Obviously, it's a tougher thing to kind of understand it's a lot of different customers. But just in your base case assumption, the kind of the midpoint of your margin guidance, which is up, I think, 80 bps, what do you think best split looks like?

Operator

Yes, it's tough to call because part of that includes call in the market, which is not good business. So I think the way to think about it is we have been absolute in our commitment to our gross margin model as well as our total model for the company going through the peak and the trough of this cycle. We didn't increase our gross margin targets in the peak and we're not decreasing our gross margin targets in the trough. And what we've said is as we go through each quarter as revenue increases, gross margins will increase. That's what we've seen in Q1.

Operator

That's what we're sharing that we expect to continue in Q2. And we expect, simply said, as revenue increases, gross margins will continue to increase back to those levels that we all know and love. So that's an easy way to think about it. It's also worth mentioning that as the revenue goes up, the component of the fixed cost absorption goes down. So we're seeing that.

Operator

And right now, the predominant factor is the mix. And that's what we shared in the script and that's what we're looking at right now. So easy way to think about it, each quarter as that revenue increases, you'll see that gross margin increase with it.

Speaker 9

Thanks,

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Quinn Bolton from Needham and Company. Your question please.

Speaker 10

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. I guess I wanted to follow-up first on that mix issue for gross margin. You kind of said that the mix shifts more to direct here in the near term. And it sort of feels like you're implying that that's a gross margin headwind. Just wanted to confirm that the disty sales do carry higher margin than direct sales.

Speaker 10

And not sure if you will, but I'll ask if you could quantify how much of an impact is that channel mix having on near term gross margins? And then I've got a second follow-up question.

Operator

So yes, Quinn, this is Matt. Quick answer is, generally you do see channel or distribution gross margins is higher than direct. That's fairly typical. And for us, what we've also said is mix is now the major driver, predominant driver of the gross margin being at the levels it is versus where it should and will be. So those are the 2, I think answers to your question are hopefully helpful.

Speaker 10

Got it. Yes, that helps. And then I guess, I know you guys obviously aren't guiding beyond the current quarter, but given that you've stated that consumption level of 160 or higher, I guess, kind of looked out to the second half of the year, the streets got revenue close to 190 in September, 220 plus in December. That's significantly higher than that consumption level. And so I guess, these aren't your numbers, but what has to happen for the business to get back to kind of where the streets look in the second half of the year?

Speaker 10

Do you think consumption can increase at that rapid of a pace? Is it really the 3 growth drivers you talked about the smart metering, glucose monitoring, the electronic shelf labeling that gets you there? Or just any sort of thoughts on sort of that second half?

Operator

Sorry, Quinn, can you just say the key question is what are the drivers for the Yes.

Speaker 10

I mean, I just obviously, you've kind of stated that this consumption number of 160 and I know that that's kind of a floor not necessarily where you think consumption is, but the street numbers for the second half have revenue in September up at like 190220. And I know these aren't your numbers, but I guess to the extent the company were to hit that kind of revenue in the second half, what drives that? Is it you think consumption can get up to that kind of level in the second half? Is it driven by some of these new product opportunities that are ramping this year? I mean, just what's how would you get there in the second half given that 160,000,000 consumption number you've discussed?

Operator

Got it. Got it. Okay. So yes, a couple of things. I mean, obviously, the first starting point is, you all know this, we don't guide beyond the current quarter, but I can definitely talk about some dynamics that might be helpful towards that end.

Operator

And just a reminder on that $160,000,000 number that that was to give people context around kind of what we as we were going through our OpEx reductions last year, that was kind of a rough estimate of a breakeven point. And obviously, our point was you do your reductions around something that you believed was indicative or better of our consumption. You wouldn't make OpEx reductions on what you thought your go forward steady state was if you're losing money there. So that's important. But to your question, so easy way to think about it is if you oversimplify the 3 major buckets, we have this destocking phenomena, where there's excess inventory at customers, You have design wins ramping and end market.

Operator

Right now, the bulk of what we're seeing in Q1 to Q2 is really destocking. There are some ramps in there, but it's not the primary driver. So as we've said, even at 140, that's not indicative of consumption. So there's still a ways to go, which is encouraging. And we see that destocking continuing.

Operator

There's 2 other factors there, which are the design wins, which I just shared earlier that we do see good design win progress in ramps this year on some pretty major trends in areas, including CGMs, electronic shelf labels, metering, where strong positions and those are ramping. So that gives us an additional lift in addition to revenue approaching consumption. The end market piece, end demand is more difficult to call. There's just a lot of uncertainty out there in the marketplace. There's conflicting signals and not for sure not trying to call that.

Operator

But if and when that does improve, that's an additional tailwind. But obviously, you can't bake on that or assume that at least right now.

Speaker 10

Understood. Thanks, Matt.

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Srini Pajjuri from Raymond James. Your question please.

Speaker 9

Thank you. Good morning guys. Matt on the bookings front, I think you said the weekly bookings are getting better. So I was just hoping you could give us some additional color as to whether the bookings improvement you're seeing is fairly broad based or if it's if one particular end market is doing better than the others? And also from a geography standpoint, if you're seeing any noticeable differences in terms of the bookings improvement?

Operator

Yes, understood. Quick answer is bookings are improving in a pretty broad and consistent pace. And so what I mean by that is this isn't 1 or 2 or 3 good weeks. This is many weeks months of consistent improvement, which is what you'd want to see. As I mentioned, it's not at the levels we want to see to say we're fully on the other side of this, but the trend is undeniable and encouraging.

Operator

To your other point, definitely broad by technology, geo application space, which is what you'd want to see. As I said, I think home and life is a little bit further through than industrial and commercial, but we're seeing improvement and strength in both. And the last thing is just a caveat to all of that. Maybe the exception is China, where to be clear, APAC we're seeing improvement, but in China we're seeing encouraging signs in terms of design win activity, signaling that there's improving strength, PMI is improving all that, but we're not seeing that manifest in terms of revenue yet. So that would be the one place and we're not we haven't baked it in.

Operator

We're not assuming it improves. So there's some encouraging signs, but no, it's not coming out in results yet. So hopefully that's helpful.

Speaker 9

Yes, great. Thanks for the color. And then you also kind of talked about ASPs kind of returning to the pre pandemic levels or at least the trends in terms of annual ASP declines. I just want to kind of given your new product pipeline, of course, the market does what it does. But can you talk about in terms of as we go from Series 2 to Series 3 and there's a lot of talk about Edge AI etcetera, have your own ASPs on a mix adjusted basis?

Speaker 9

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that as we look out to the next 12 to 24 months, should we kind of bank on unit growth to model your revenue growth or do you see kind of content increasing for you as well? And if content is increasing, what are the end markets and what are some of the applications that will drive that content? Thank you.

Operator

Sure. So big picture if you step back, Series 2 is obviously helpful for us from a gross margin perspective and pricing perspective in that these are new products with new features, new capabilities that are in demand. And easy way to say it, we mentioned AIML, so artificial intelligence machine learning. So having products that are in production that have the ability to very efficiently provide machine learning inference at the edge on a battery powered device is a pretty powerful capability and feature and obviously helps us in terms of being differentiated and driving value with our customers. So Series 2 as it continues to come out with features capabilities that are best in class that is obviously helpful against that dynamic.

Operator

And to be clear that it's not a new trend or dynamic. That's always how we've operated and traded. But it's Series 2 is still introducing new products even in the last few days and in the last few months. So that helps. And then the second piece is Series 3, obviously, will, as we've shared, bring new to industry capabilities, features and performance, which will again allow us to work on that dynamic.

Operator

But I do want to set expectations accordingly that won't be an ASP list in the next couple of years. I mean that's seriously will ramp over years and I wouldn't look there for an ASP list. I look more to Series 2 and how is that doing and then Series 3 is more of a mid and long term play. But both help on differentiation performance features, which help on ASPs and gross margins.

Speaker 9

Got it. Thanks, Matt.

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Cody Acree from The Benchmark Company. Your question please.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks guys for taking my questions. Just a quick thoughts on operating expenses as you're heading off the bottom here.

Operator

Yes, sure. So I mean a reminder for everyone, as we were going through this cycle, as revenue is decreasing, we decreased our OpEx every quarter along with that. And then as we've shared, as revenue starts going up, we will increase our OpEx, although not at the same level moving forward. And some of those changes last year were structural, right, with reductions that we've shared in prior calls. That being said, the increase from Q1 to Q2 would be faster than that.

Operator

And part of that is just one time dynamics. For example, as we've added annual merit cycle back for our employees that drives increases from Q1 to Q2. And then some of the temporary things from last year that have to come back such as bonus accruals or travel that's driving an unusually high increase as well. But to be clear, as revenue is going down, we reduced OpEx every quarter. As it goes up, we will increase it at a lower rate.

Operator

Q1 to Q2 a little bit higher than normal because of those one time effects.

Speaker 3

Thanks for that. And maybe just continuing on there, what were the processes that you went through as you are going through the OpEx reductions during this cuts to make sure that you weren't impairing revenue growth?

Operator

Yes, sure. So big picture, that's hard and not easy to do if we're being honest about it. So what we've done is some of the changes were things obviously prioritization where you take classic things, things are at the bottom and you do less of those and make sure you're feeding the things at the top that have the biggest impact, biggest returns. There's also going after shifts. We're using the environment as difficult as it is for doing strategic initiatives and shifts where you need to reshore or move resources from one geo to another or do leadership changes.

Operator

So as an example, we shared the CIO announcement with Radhika. That was one of the changes that came out of last year where we said strategically how do we approach IT differently. So there's employees moving across geos as part of that, but also leveraging rebalancing internal, external capabilities and make versus buy as a classic way to say it. So it's the combination of all those things saying, look, it hurts and it's difficult to make these decisions, but look at it through a lens of managing the portfolio and how do we use this difficult environment, not just to cut and have less revenue, but to cut and use it to transform and restructure, rechange how we approach things. Because the easiest way to say it, Cody, is if we do these cuts and we don't we come out the other side and say, let's just add them back the same way, horrible inefficiency.

Operator

The motto and approach is make these difficult changes and use them to make us better, use them to transform, to reconstitute our capability and that's the approach you've taken. So I really do see that this will be transformative even though it was difficult, but obviously too early to see the signs of that. But you're starting to see early things like the CIO announcement.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks, Phil.

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Peter Peng from JPMorgan. Your question please.

Speaker 4

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just want to follow-up on the China point where it seems like you guys are not seeing any improvement. How important is China recovery to that $160,000,000 number that you guys talked about?

Operator

The quick answer is it's not in there. China, I think right now for us is roughly around 13% of our revenue and we are supporting the region. As I said, good design win activity, but the revenue hasn't meaningfully moved and we're not assuming that it will. So if it does, that's fantastic, but not baked into an assumption of recovery for us.

Speaker 4

Got it. Thanks. And maybe just on some of these new design wins, when you talked about actually coming in the second half, Maybe you can help us understand maybe the size or the scope of these ramps and how meaningful is it to revenue in the second half of this year?

Operator

So we haven't provided that context and we're not guiding beyond the current quarter. But easy way to think about it is, we've shared over previous quarters, all of these ramps are 1, not single customer. They're end market across multiple customers and they are meaningful end segments for us and ramps. And I would characterize each of them also as relatively early phases for us in terms of their ramp and potential. But they will all ramp this year, which I think is important and will give us a tailwind, as I said earlier, to whatever that consumption number is.

Operator

As we approach that, it gives us lift beyond that. And then as I said, the end market as well when we see strength there. But no more color on the actual magnitude or size of those. We haven't provided that.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Joe Moore from Morgan Stanley. Your question please.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you. Last quarter you

Speaker 11

had talked about one competitor. I think it was isolating something better that had been pricing a little bit more aggressively. Can you give us an update there? Any changes that just the new normal or is there anything to report there?

Operator

Hi, Joe. I don't think it's I think that's been consistent that most of the industry market has been behaving as you'd expect in this type of market environment. As we said, we did see 1 competitor who was we thought being more aggressive and that hasn't changed. But not signaling anything there, not trying to convey anything. I just wanted to answer with integrity, which is why I called it up.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jonathan, and thank you all for joining our call this morning. This concludes today's call. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.

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Earnings Conference Call
Silicon Laboratories Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00