Lumentum Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 14, 2024

There are 15 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Lumentum Holdings 4th Quarter Fiscal Year 20 24 Earnings Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Please also note today's event is being recorded for replay purposes. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Kathy Ta, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms.

Operator

Ta, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and welcome to Lumentum's fiscal Q4 and full year 2024 earnings call. This is Cathy Ta, Lumentum's Vice President of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Alan Lowe, President and Chief Executive Officer Wajid Ali, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Chris Coldren, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer. Today's call will include forward looking statements, including statements regarding our strategies, trends and expectations for our products and technologies, including demand our customers our end markets and market opportunities our expectations and beliefs regarding recent acquisitions, including Cloudlight macroeconomic trends and our expected financial and operating performance, including our guidance, as well as statements regarding our future revenues, financial model and margin targets. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations, particularly the risk factors described in our SEC filings.

Speaker 1

We encourage you to review our most recent filings with the SEC, particularly the risk factors described in our most recent 10 Q and in our 10 ks that will be filed soon. The forward looking statements provided during this call are based on Lumentum's reasonable beliefs and expectations as of today. Lumentum undertakes no obligation to update these statements, except as required by applicable law. Please also note that unless otherwise stated, all financial results and projections discussed in this call are non GAAP. Non GAAP financials are not to be considered as a substitute for or superior to financials prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Speaker 1

Lumentum's press release with the fiscal Q4 fiscal 2024 results and accompanying supplemental slides are available on our website atwww.luventum.com under the Investors section. With that, I'll turn the call over to Alan.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Kathy, and good afternoon, everyone. We exceeded the midpoint of our guidance for both revenue and EPS for the Q4. We booked record orders for datacom chips used in data center applications and saw emerging positive trends in the broader networking market. We made significant progress in executing our strategy to grow our cloud business and broaden our customer base, including a new and substantial cloud and AI module opportunities. Lumentum is emerging as a leading provider of photonic solutions for cloud data center operators and AI infrastructure providers.

Speaker 2

Our comprehensive photonics portfolio built on differentiated in house technology and proven volume manufacturing delivers innovative solutions that address the critical challenges of connectivity bottlenecks and power consumption. To achieve our cloud and AI goals, we are implementing a 3 pronged strategy. 1st, we are focused on expanding our customer base to include multiple data center operators and AI infrastructure providers as they migrate to higher speeds. 2nd, we are scaling up capacity for component and module production at established Lumentum facilities outside of China. And third, we are executing on our differentiated technology roadmaps to support data center compute scaling across future generations of optical interconnect technologies and data center architectures.

Speaker 2

I would like to elaborate on our progress in each of these areas. Our first priority is to expand our customer base within the data center market by leveraging our advanced high speed optical transceiver capabilities and proven laser transmitter components. As the industry transitions to higher speeds, our differentiated technology becomes increasingly valuable to these customers. Within data centers, the shift to 200 gs lane speeds, particularly in 1.6 T optical transceivers plays to our strengths. The growing importance of single mode optics and indium phosphide lasers driven by the limitations in multimode optics aligns well with our market and technology leadership positions.

Speaker 2

Our industry leading 100 gs EML transmitter components have established a strong reputation for performance, quality and reliability and are currently shipping in record volumes. Our proven capabilities position us favorably as the industry adopts 200 gs per lane technologies. Our 200 gs EMLs are being qualified by multiple customers for integration into their transceivers and subsequent deployment in a wide range of cloud and AI infrastructures. We anticipate being a key laser supplier in initial 1.6 t transceiver deployments as we ramp up 200 gs EMLs later this fiscal year. In Q4, we achieved record volume shipments of EMLs and secured substantial bookings, which we will be working to fulfill throughout fiscal 2025.

Speaker 2

This includes initial orders for 200 gs EMLs from leading AI customers. Based on this momentum, we foresee continued strong EML shipments throughout fiscal 2025 and into fiscal 2026. Additionally, we are supplying differentiated laser sources for silicon photonics based transceivers further broadening our content opportunity within the data center market. We've also made significant progress on our newest 800 gs and initial 1.6 T transceiver product developments. We are deeply engaged with multiple customers and we have received favorable feedback after providing product samples to these customers.

Speaker 2

We have secured a major award with one new customer and are actively working to finalize additional awards with multiple customers. The second prong of our cloud strategy involves expanding manufacturing capacity for both optical transceivers and optical components at established Lumentum facilities outside of China. This expansion is critical to supporting our cloud customers growing AI and cloud workloads while ensuring supply chain security. As mentioned earlier, indium phosphide lasers are essential for scaling data center infrastructure. Due to overwhelming demand for our critical technology, our indium phosphide capacity is fully subscribed through at least the end of calendar 2025 and therefore we can only meet this demand by growing capacity.

Speaker 2

In the current fiscal Q1, we have already invested $43,000,000 in our indium phosphide wafer fab facilities and we expect to continue to invest in our indium phosphide capacity over the next several quarters to keep up with the growing demand of these enabling laser technologies. Although the industry faces a broad shortage of indium phosphide lasers, over time our capacity additions will help mitigate these constraints. However, we anticipate that our production output will remain on allocation through at least the end of calendar 2025. Our significant capacity expansion for optical transceivers in our facility in Thailand is progressing as planned with the 1st production line scheduled to start operations this quarter. Based on current engagements with multiple hyperscale cloud operators and AI infrastructure customers, we expect to complete additional phases of our manufacturing capacity expansion over the next 18 months to keep up with the expected strong demand.

Speaker 2

Finally, the 3rd prong of our cloud strategy is on delivering differentiated technologies to address the evolving challenges of data center scaling encompassing both increased data link capacity and enhanced energy efficiency. We are actively collaborating with leading edge customers to deliver breakthrough technologies that will support multi year cloud and AI infrastructure roadmaps. Optical switching, a critical component of future cloud and AI networking architectures presents a significant opportunity for us at Lumentum. Our optical switch products in development offer advantages in power efficiency, increased bandwidth, reduced latency, flexibility and agility. We have shipped evaluation units to multiple customers and the initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

Speaker 2

Another key technology area is enabling the transition to high density, low power optical links for future generations. Our ultra high power laser technologies have attracted considerable interest from cloud and AI infrastructure customers developing high density optical interconnects. Our heritage of delivering high performance, high reliability lasers in high volume production environment position us favorably for this emerging market. Lastly, we are focused on enabling the shift to speed beyond 200 gs per lane such as the 400 gs per lane generation. Our advanced indium phosphide and photonic integrated circuit capabilities honed through years of experience in data center and high performance telecom applications are essential to meeting future demands.

Speaker 2

While the deployment of these products and technologies is a few years away, these are long term developments requiring early investment and close customer collaboration. We are actively engaged with customers and their R and D teams and together we are shaping the future of optical technology. Now let me move to additional fiscal Q4 revenue and product highlights. As expected, our cloud and networking segment had a challenging quarter with revenue declining 19% sequentially and 11% year over year. While overall demand for telecom products was soft in the quarter as expected, we are encouraged by several positive trends emerging within this part of our business.

Speaker 2

We saw an increase in shipments for narrow line with 10 volt lasers used in 400 ZR modules for data center interconnect applications. With our design wins, we anticipate maintaining a leading market share position in laser components for ZR and ZR plus applications this fiscal year and in the coming years. While there is still lingering industry inventory challenges, we are encouraged by recent indications of improvement in the traditional networking market. Recent weeks have brought increased customer demand to our newest leading edge coherent transmission and next generation transport products along with continued signs of customer inventory normalization. Consistent with this, advanced ROADM demand is showing promise with growing demand for integrated C plus L band solutions and high port count ROADM products.

Speaker 2

In leading edge coherent transmission, we are seeing excellent demand trends for 130 gigabaud coherent products and encouraging early traction with our 200 gigabaud products. This is driven by customer demand for increased capacity and spectral efficiency fueled by continued bandwidth demand growth. Our broad set of design wins and differentiated technology and manufacturing capabilities position us for continued leadership in these important products in the coming years. We expect our cloud and networking business to show sequential improvement in fiscal Q1. Now let me move to our Industrial Tech segment.

Speaker 2

Our Industrial Tech segment revenue increased 2% sequentially, but declined 36% year over year as expected. Like others in this space, we continue to face challenges due to the weak end market demand and high levels of customer inventory. In Industrial Tech, we continue to focus on developing innovative industrial laser products that address rapidly growing applications. The growing demand for higher precision is driving a transition from picosecond to femtosecond lasers. These lasers with their extremely short pulses offer more precise material processing without significant heat damage, opening new possibilities in sensitive applications such as semiconductors, displays and advanced chip packaging.

Speaker 2

These market areas are in turn driven by the growth of AI. The immense computational demands of AI require significant advancements in semiconductors and innovative packaging technologies to support high performance computing. We are actively collaborating with leading semiconductor equipment manufacturers to develop ultrafast lasers for interposer and advanced semiconductor packaging. In the Q4, we also successfully delivered both high and low power femtoblate demo units for advanced display applications. Looking to fiscal Q1, we expect industrial tech to be down sequentially due to continued weak end market demand and ongoing customer inventory adjustments with a modest seasonal increase in 3 d sensing revenue.

Speaker 2

To summarize, we have made significant progress in executing our strategy to grow our cloud business. We booked record orders for datacom chips and are investing in additional production capacity to help us meet customer demand. We have made excellent progress with multiple new high speed optical transceiver customer engagements including securing a major transceiver award with 1 new customer. We are actively working to secure additional awards from other new customers. Our robust pipeline of cloud customer engagements and improving trends in the traditional networking market reinforce our confidence in the target we highlighted on our last earnings call.

Speaker 2

This is to grow quarterly revenue to $500,000,000 by the end of calendar 2025. We foresee continued significant growth into 2026 and 2027. We are executing on new cloud and AI opportunities that we expect will elevate our cloud business to a multi $1,000,000,000 annual run rate in the coming years. Before turning the call over to Wajid, I want to express my sincere gratitude to all our employees and customers worldwide for their unwavering focus, dedication and collaborative spirit. With that, Wajid?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Alan. 4th quarter revenue of $308,300,000 and non GAAP EPS of $0.06 were above the midpoint of our guidance ranges. GAAP gross margin for the 4th quarter was 16.6%, GAAP operating loss was 43.3 percent and GAAP diluted net loss per share was $3.72 with a large portion of the GAAP net loss primarily driven by restructuring charges, amortization of acquired intangibles and a valuation allowance related to certain tax assets. Due to the historical GAAP losses of the company and a backward looking calculation to determine the requirement for valuation allowances on deferred tax assets, the company determined the need to record a valuation allowance of $139,800,000 to its U. S.

Speaker 3

Deferred tax assets on the company's balance sheet as of the most recent fiscal period. Given the business opportunities ahead and the growth expectations Alan highlighted, we believe in the future we will be in a position to release this allowance and use the related asset. To increase investments in programs that accelerate our exposure to significant new AI opportunities, we decided to stop our in house development of certain communications ASICs, including coherent DSPs and RFICs. We believe we can meet customer needs using ASICs from 3rd party partners, while reallocating significant R and D spending towards new cloud and AI customer programs. As a result of this decision, in Q4, we recorded $35,800,000 of restructuring and related charges, including a $29,100,000 write off of in process research and development intangible assets.

Speaker 3

Turning to our non GAAP results. 4th quarter non GAAP gross margin was 32.2%, which was down sequentially and year on year on lower revenue. In future quarters, we anticipate company gross margin will sequentially increase as manufacturing utilization improves due to an improved telecom outlook as well as an increase in datacom laser shipments. 4th quarter non GAAP operating loss was 0.3%, which was down sequentially and year on year on lower revenue. 4th quarter non GAAP operating loss was $800,000 and adjusted EBITDA was $25,900,000 4th quarter non GAAP operating expenses totaled $100,000,000 or 32.4 percent of revenue, a decrease of $4,300,000 from the 3rd quarter and down $2,400,000 from the year ago quarter.

Speaker 3

The lower operating expense in Q4 was achieved despite increased R and D spending on our datacom transceivers given the strong customer traction that Alan spoke of earlier. Q4 non GAAP SG and A expense was $35,100,000 Non GAAP R and D expense was $64,900,000 Interest and other income was $5,400,000 on a non GAAP basis driven by interest earned on our cash and investments. 4th quarter non GAAP net income was $4,000,000 and non GAAP diluted net income per share was $0.06 Our fully diluted share count for the 4th quarter was 68,300,000 shares on a non GAAP basis. Turning to the full year results. Fiscal 2024 net revenue was $1,360,000,000 which was down 23.1 percent from fiscal 2023.

Speaker 3

GAAP gross margin for fiscal 2024 was 18.5%. GAAP operating loss was 31.9% and GAAP diluted net loss per share was $8.12 Full year fiscal 2024 non GAAP gross margin was 33%, which was down relative to fiscal 2023 due to lower overall demand and factory utilization. Fiscal year 20 24 non GAAP operating margin was 2.8%, down from fiscal 2023 due to lower gross margin. Fiscal 20 24 non GAAP operating income was $37,800,000 and adjusted EBITDA was $140,500,000 For fiscal 2024, our fully diluted share count on a non GAAP basis was 67,700,000 shares. Non GAAP net income was $68,700,000 and non GAAP diluted net income per share was $1.01 Turning to the balance sheet.

Speaker 3

During the Q4, our cash and short term investments increased by $16,000,000 to $887,000,000 This increase was primarily due to improved working capital performance as we achieved a $22,000,000 sequential reduction and Lumentum's overall inventory levels. In Q4, we invested $24,000,000 in CapEx, primarily driven by high speed transceiver capacity additions at our Thailand manufacturing site. As we move through fiscal 2025 and beyond, we're focused on expanding our high speed transceiver capabilities and capacity in Thailand to support 800 gs, 1.6t and eventually 3.2t transceivers. We anticipate an elevated level of capital expenditures in fiscal 2025 to proactively meet the anticipated surge in demand for high speed transceivers and datacom components. Turning to segment details.

Speaker 3

4th quarter Cloud and Networking segment revenue at $254,700,000 decreased 18.8% sequentially and decreased 11.1% year on year. Cloud and Networking segment profit at 10.1 percent decreased sequentially and decreased year on year. Our 4th quarter Industrial Tech segment revenue at $53,600,000 was up 1.7% sequentially and down 36.4% year on year. 4th quarter Industrial Tech segment loss of 0.4% improved sequentially. Year on year segment profit declined.

Speaker 3

Now let me move to our guidance for the Q1 of fiscal 2025, which is on a non GAAP basis and is based on our assumptions as of today. We expect net revenue for the Q1 of fiscal 2025 to be in the range of $315,000,000 to $335,000,000 At the midpoint, we expect to show year over year revenue growth when compared to Q1 of fiscal 2024. This Q1 revenue forecast includes the following assumptions: Cloud and networking to be up sequentially, primarily driven by an improvement in telecom networking demand and industrial tech to be approximately flat sequentially with decreased industrial laser shipments offset by a modest uptick in 3 d sensing due to typical seasonality. Based on this, we project 1st quarter non GAAP operating margin to be in the range of 0% to 3% and diluted net income per share to be in the range of $0.07 to 0 point 17 dollars Our non GAAP EPS guidance for the Q1 is based on a non GAAP annual effective tax rate of 16.5%. These projections also assume an approximate share count of 68,800,000 shares.

Speaker 3

Please note this guidance includes certain expenses that were previously excluded from our non GAAP presentation, mainly those related to abnormal excess capacity that in Q4 and prior periods were excluded from our non GAAP results. This change in presentation reduces our Q1 EPS guidance by approximately $0.05 compared with our prior presentation methodology. For clarity, our Q1 non GAAP EPS guidance of $0.07 to $0.17 includes the impact of the new presentation. With that, I'll turn the call back to Kathy to start the Q and A session.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Wajid. Now let's begin the Q and A session.

Operator

We will now begin the Q and A session. The first question is from the line of Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Speaker 4

Thanks for taking my questions. And I'll ask both of my questions at the same go. So I guess the first one was in relation to the new customer announcement that you highlighted in your prepared remarks. Can you give us a bit more color in relation to sort of the type of customer, whether it's a web scaler or how should we think about the type of the customer? And how are you thinking about the magnitude of the opportunity relative to the run rate of your module business at this time?

Speaker 4

And for my follow-up, just in terms of the Q4 to Q1, I think you mentioned sequential growth in telecom. Didn't really hear you talk about any sort of guidance on the datacom side. So if you can just help us how to think about datacom between Q4 and Q1 because and also if it's not going sequentially, then what is driving the sequential decline in revenue in the datacom business between Q4 and Q1? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Samik. I'd say we don't want to comment too much on what type of customer, but you can imagine we use the word major and big. So it's big. I would say that run rate wise, I think it comes down to how well we execute.

Speaker 2

And so we will earn as much business as we earn from our customer given our execution. And so, so far we're off to a good start. And as I said in the prepared remarks, our operation in Thailand, first production line is ready this quarter. And so we'll be shipping first units out of Thailand this quarter with qualifications happening and ramp beginning early part of calendar 2025. So consistent with what we've said in the past.

Speaker 2

So as far as comparison to run rate stuff, that's really going to be very variable given we have to earn it and we have to execute well with good quality and performance and delivery. So I hesitate to comment more on that, but certainly that the customer that we have said we've gotten the award on certainly consumes a lot and certainly could be as big if not bigger. On the second question, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 4

It was on the sequence of brand and vehicle.

Speaker 2

Yes. We're not going to break out datacom versus telecom. What we did say was that we've seen some improvements in telecom. So you can expect that that's going to grow quarter on quarter. And as we said in the last earnings call, we're in a product transition.

Speaker 2

And so the Q4, Q1 numbers are depressed. And so that's coming to fruition. We expect that to then pick up in our fiscal Q2.

Speaker 4

Okay, good.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Robert.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Alex Henderson with Needham and Company. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Thanks. So I was hoping you could talk about the capacity ramp timing on both the chips business as well as the transceiver business at Cloudlight. My understanding is that coming out of the June quarter, you should be fairly flattish in that business in terms of available capacity and that new capacity should be coming on stream in the December quarter and ramping starting kind of in the first half of calendar year 'twenty five. Can you give us any sense of that cadence and what those plans might look like now versus what they look like say 3 months ago?

Speaker 2

Yes. As we said again in the prepared remarks, we had record bookings for our chip business and we invested $43,000,000 already this quarter in our fab capacity to address that. So you're right, it takes time for that to come online, but we should see incremental capacity in the first half of calendar twenty twenty five where but in the short term it's relatively fixed given the cycle time of the fab etcetera. So I'd say on the chip business we're in fact in all CapEx we meet monthly and evaluate if we need to order more or less or hold off. And so that's the discipline we're trying to put into the process to make sure that we have the capacity when our customers need it and that we don't have too much idle capacity that are increasing our fixed costs with that business.

Speaker 2

On the transceiver side, as I said before, the initial line is up in Thailand this quarter. So we'll be shipping samples. But we won't really get any volume shipments out of Thailand until the 1st calendar quarter of 2025 when the qualifications that our customers have been done and the ramp up starts there. But we'll have growing capacity through calendar 2025. And that's why we said about our confidence in that achieving the $500,000,000 per quarter by the end of 2025 calendar

Speaker 1

Alex. Did you have a follow-up question?

Speaker 6

Yes, just a follow-up on the telecom side. I'm a little surprised that the telecom component space is recovering in the September quarter given the high level of capacities that is or the inventories that are out at the customers, the OEMs. Can you talk a little bit about where what product areas that you're seeing that in? And how fast do you think that the inventories are going to come down based on the demand you're seeing?

Speaker 2

Yes, you're right, Alex. There is still inventory in our customers and beyond. It's a we've seen strength in products that we weren't shipping a year ago or 2 years ago during the pandemic. And so therefore, there's no inventory built up of these products. So the 130 gigabaud coherent components, the 200 gigabaud coherent components are just starting today.

Speaker 2

And then our new ROADM products that we weren't shipping a year ago are seeing strong demand in our integrated C plus L as well as new and differentiated high port count WSS. So that's kind of what we're seeing. We are seeing strength in the narrow line with tunable lasers as that has I think the data center interconnect business has burned off a lot of the inventory given people are having to place data centers further apart and no longer can connect them within a campus because of the power requirement. So I'd say that's in general what we're seeing the strengths in telecom.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Alex.

Speaker 6

So new products as opposed to older products. Thanks. I appreciate the clarity.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Alex.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Simon Leopold with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks for taking the question. First one I wanted to ask is maybe if you could give us a little bit more color on the products associated with the new Datacom award. Specifically, I think these would be 800 gig and I'm guessing single mode products, but wondering whether or not there's more to it than a single product line, any color there. And as a follow-up, I also want to understand on your telecom business in the June quarter, you had originally talked about a $30,000,000 sequential decline.

Speaker 7

And so I'm trying to get a better understanding of did that occur? And when we think about the recovery of sequential growth in September, are we how close are we getting back to sort of the prior run rates before the June quarter? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Simon. As I said, the I don't want to comment too much about specific customers, but I would say that you're right. It's people aren't designing new products to deal with old technology. So this is the leading edge 800 gig single mode transceiver that we feel very confident in our ability to develop and to ship to and qualify for this customer.

Speaker 2

On the telecom question, Chris, you want to take that one? The revenue coming down June quarter that happened in the June quarter for telecom. Your question was telecom, right, Simon?

Speaker 7

Yes. I wanted to understand sort of if you drop 30 and you go up 5, well, that's still a big distance from where you used to be.

Speaker 2

Yes. I don't know the specifics. I would say that as we said, the telecom and datacom business is up mostly from the telecom strength. And so as we said before, the transition period for our datacom transceiver business is happening Q4 and Q1 and we expect that to grow in Q4. So most of the growth in datacom and telecom is coming from telecom bounce back from really a low point in the June quarter.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Simon.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from George Notter with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Speaker 8

Hi, thanks very much. I'm just curious if you guys have an NVIDIA qualification on this 800 gig single mode transceiver?

Speaker 2

Yes. We're not going to comment on who the customer is, George. I would say that, as I said before, most customers are working with us on products they don't already have. And so, for instance, we are designing 1.6 terabit transceivers and the performance is quite good. We plan on sampling customers this quarter on 1.6 T.

Speaker 2

So there's a few leaders that would be consuming that. And so you can imply what you want from that, but we're not going to speak specifically about any individual customer.

Speaker 8

Got it. Okay. And then this transceiver customer, I guess I'm based on something you said, I was curious about whether or not this contractor relationship is just a framework arrangement or are there certain minimum volumes or minimum market share that you're being given by this customer? Anything you can say in terms of first source, second source, third source? I'd love any more details you can provide.

Speaker 8

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Well, this is a new product, right? And so it comes down to our ability to execute. And so we will earn share or earn more share, I should say, as we execute. And I think the combination of U. S.

Speaker 2

Headquartered company manufacturing in Thailand, there's certainly fear of what happens in the next election and if tariffs impact the ability to be competitive when shipping out of China. So I think we've got a lot of good things going in our favor. And then it will come down to how well we execute the ramp. And I think we're very well positioned to capture a significant amount of share there.

Speaker 8

Great. Okay, super. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Thank you, George.

Operator

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

Speaker 9

Great. Thanks. I don't know if I'll get an answer here, but it's worth an ask. You've mentioned kind of the $500,000,000 quarterly run rate exiting calendar 2025. But just how should we think about kind of the datacom capacity between chips and transceivers you would have exiting fiscal 2025?

Speaker 9

And then maybe just a second question there. Has anything changed with kind of the ramp patterns of kind of your lead customer today on transceivers and their design

Speaker 2

chips adding capacity. We are adding capacity. We should see significant growth above market growth in our chip output over the next 12 months. And I think that's why we are and we have more orders than that. So it's really constrained by our ability to add capacity, improve yields and then transition to 200 gig per lane chips.

Speaker 2

And so I would say that as the shift from 100 gig to 200 gig kicks in, there's a pickup in revenue per chip that we should experience as well. On the transceivers, as I said before, the monthly capital meetings where we determine how much capacity to put in place is what we're going through and it's based on traction with customers and qualifications and awards and things like that. So we're certainly making sure we put the infrastructure in place, the facilities in place to support well over what I'm talking about for the $500,000,000 per quarter in overall revenue. So I think it comes down to execution and our ability to win the mine share and market share for each customer we're working with. As far as the lead customer, I really don't want to talk specifics about customers, but I'd just reiterate what I'd said before, which was product transitions happening in Q4 and Q1 and then we expect a pickup in revenue and datacom in the December quarter.

Speaker 9

Great. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Meta.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Tom O'Malley with Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Hey, Alan. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to get a clarification on the new major transceiver award with the new customer. So can you just explain to me the difference with what you kind of define as an award versus a win versus a qualification? Because I just and correct me if I'm wrong, I think you said that qualification would happen in Q1 and it would be out of the Thailand facility.

Speaker 10

And I believe you said that also the Thailand facility wouldn't be ready until calendar Q1. So if the product is getting qualified in Q1, can you talk about the time frame that, that would launch? And what is an award versus what is a qualified product just because you would imagine that it's hard to have revenue for something until it's actually qualified. So am I making a mistake here in the timeframe that I'm laying out?

Speaker 2

Well, you're generally accurate. I'd say just a correction, our first production line in Thailand is operational this quarter and we plan to build and ship product this quarter for the qualification. Now it takes them months to get the qualification work done. And so it's not done until it's done to your point, absolutely. Now we're staging material because we're confident in our ability to perform.

Speaker 2

We're staging capital to be able to support the volumes they're talking about. So I'd say from that perspective, it really gets down to us performing. Now if the product doesn't work, they're not going to buy product that doesn't work. And so you're right, we have to be qualified, we have to have quality and we have to have the ability to ramp. And we're making sure that we are controlling what we can control, which is the product quality, the design, the capacity and the materials to support this customer who is critically important for us.

Speaker 10

So I guess the follow-up is what would be different from an award versus the yeah, thank you, Kathy. Yeah, what would be the difference between an award and what you're doing with other hyperscale or potential customers? Like are you committing more capital to them? Because it sounds like if you're not qualified, isn't this just kind of R and D work on a potential future customer, which all other kind of development would kind of fall under?

Speaker 2

Not really. I mean each of these customers don't want to work with 8 suppliers, right? So they have to down select to the ones that they're going to spend their engineering time with and they have chosen us. And so we're not the only person for sure, but it's the choice that they've made and they've given us something that says we're awarded the business that we have to earn it and we have to perform as with anything that we develop for customers. So I'd say it's different than just working with the customer.

Speaker 2

It's I've chosen you out of the suppliers that I can choose. And again, for multiple reasons, proven technology, proven vertical integration, U. S. Headquartered, outside of China manufacturing. So there's a lot of reasons that this customer chose us and now we just have to perform out of Thailand, which is new to us, but I have confidence in the team to be able to execute.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Tom.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Reuben Roy with Stifel. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Yes, thank you. Alan, I was

Speaker 11

wondering if you could comment a little bit on sort of the how you're thinking about 1.6 terabit timing 90 days ago, we talked about back half of this year, perhaps into next year. But any changes on sort of timing of ramps? I think there's some dependence on switch availability and a limited number of customers potentially ramping in 2025. So any detail on how you're thinking about that would be helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. I think our focus is really controlling what we can control, which is providing customers samples this quarter with high quality, high reliability, high performing 1.6 T transceivers. And so we have multiple designs in the works that look very promising. And we're working hand in hand with, as you say, the few customers that would be interested in this today because most are still working to get to 800 gig. So that's our focus.

Speaker 2

When the customers need it, we will have it. And whether there's a switch silicon issue or other issues, we're not going to be shipping transceivers unless everything is ready to go. But that said, we want to be ready when they say go. And so that's why we're working on it now and have multiple designs working with multiple customers to get that done.

Speaker 11

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Do you

Speaker 5

have a

Speaker 1

follow-up for Wajid? And then And

Speaker 11

a quick follow-up for Wajid. Yes, just a quick follow-up for Wajid on the gross margin comment, just around thinking through record shipments of the ML lasers and sort of expectations for that ramp to continue into year end. If you can give us any more detail on how you're thinking about the gross margin progression as you get into fiscal 2025?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Ruben. Yes. So, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, both the benefit of an improved telecom outlook giving us better manufacturing utilization across our multiple factories is certainly giving us a tailwind on gross margins moving into the new fiscal year. Along with that, the record datacom shipments that Alan talked about, fulfilling that backlog is going to also give us a tailwind given that it's chip business, as you know.

Speaker 3

And then the transition over into 200 gs EMLs being a larger part of that mix will also provide a tailwind for us. So that will progress through the quarters as those shipments happen.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Joanna.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Vivek Arya with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Speaker 12

Thanks for taking my question. So, Alan, in this path towards getting to $500,000,000 what does your telco business need to be as part of that $500,000,000 I. E. What assumptions are you making for the recovery in telco to get to that landmark by the end of next calendar year?

Speaker 2

We don't need much growth in telecoms. It doesn't we're not counting on that recovering back to pandemic levels because I think that was overstated shipments. And so certainly higher than we were in the June quarter because that I think is probably the low point for us for telecom shipments. So we expect some improvement throughout calendar 2025, but not huge growth in telecom. Most of it's coming from EML chips transition to 200 gig, optical Datacom optical switching that should kick in by calendar 2025 as well as 1 or 2 transceiver wins.

Speaker 2

And that's really all we need

Speaker 4

to be able to get to 500,000,000

Speaker 12

For my follow-up on the transceiver side, how substitutable do you think are products from the different suppliers? Like how do you think the customer will allocate share, right? What's going to be the level of visibility that are you are your products better suited for some specific accelerator or switch combination? How would you know what your share could be potentially next year?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think it comes down to the performance and security of supply. And so again back to having manufacturing outside of China. And I know a lot of our partners who buy our chips are moving outside of China, but we have an established footprint with thousands of employees there and good engineers. So we have credibility in our site in Thailand to be able to ramp up high quality product and earn share.

Speaker 2

And I think that it gets back to I think where a lot of these questions are going. How much are we going to get? We're going to get what we earn and we plan to earn a lot. So I think it comes down to being able to provide what they need when they need it and make sure we have the capacity and the materials and the people and the engineers to be able to drive high quality product and earn their business. Now there is interoperability and we have to work with the various switch providers to make sure there is, but the specs are pretty consistent and clear.

Speaker 2

So we know what we need to do to be able to interrupt as needed.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Vivek.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Karl Ackerman with BNP Paribas. You may proceed.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thank you. First off, I guess, could you discuss why you're stopping in house development of Coherent DSPs? Is that related to limited uptake for 100 gig Coherent in the access market? Or are there other factors to consider?

Speaker 5

And as you address that question, are you seeing any pause in coherent optics demand broadly, at least for DCI applications? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. I'd say that we have a fixed amount of R and D we can spend and we're shifting to where we can make a big difference into markets that are growing faster. And so the combination of that, so we're adding more to the datacom transceiver business, a combination of that and the partnering with 3rd parties, both from our customers as well as from 3rd party independent chip manufacturers allows us that ability to get what we think we could need to get at an overall cost of ownership that's less than developing a 3 nanometer DSP. So from that perspective, I have confidence in our ability to secure DSPs at competitive prices to be able to address the data center interconnect market. But that said, we believe I believe the pivoting from spending on DSPs to spending on higher growth markets like inside the data center it will pay off and pay dividends.

Speaker 1

Do you have a follow-up call? Hey, operator, can we take our next question please?

Operator

Absolutely. The next question is from Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital. Your line is now open.

Speaker 13

Yes, thanks guys. Congrats on the progress. Thanks for taking the questions. I just have just one here. And maybe it falls to the clarification category.

Speaker 13

But Alan, with the new win and the way that you're talking about doing some shipping this quarter, are you guys tracking ahead on the data center call sort of dynamic that you began to talk about, I think back at OFC? I guess just as I recall it, it was mostly calls are going to take place kind of around the beginning of the year. And I know, as Tom talked about, there's some language here. But so just let me just ask it that way. Are you tracking ahead of some of the call activity?

Speaker 13

That'd be helpful. Thanks a lot guys.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Ananda. I'd say we're tracking right on schedule. We had to finish out a clean room. We've done that in our Thailand facility.

Speaker 2

We've now equipped it. We're ready to start building qualification units. And so that's right on track. And as you say, the qualification won't be done until late this calendar year. It will allow us to ramp production into the January timeframe.

Speaker 2

So that's right on track to what at least our internal plan has been and what I thought we had discussed at OTC earlier this year.

Speaker 13

Okay, great. That's super helpful. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Joel, could we have our next question please? Thank

Speaker 6

you.

Operator

The next question is from Tim Sabaoka with Northland Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Speaker 14

Hey, good afternoon. I wanted to focus back on capacity from a couple of different perspectives. Maybe relative to what you've got now, you mentioned you're at capacity in indium phosphide or EMLs. I mean, can you quantify us the extent of the planned capacity addition there over, I don't know, the next year? Are you doubling, tripling capacity, what have you?

Speaker 14

And really same question relative to your current run rate on the module side. I think that was expected to come down this quarter with the product transition. What sort of capacity are you looking to add in Thailand there relative to that? And it sounds like it's a fluid situation, but over what timeframe, I guess?

Speaker 2

Sure. I'd say the chip one is easy because equipment has to be there today for it to make much of a difference this calendar year or this fiscal year. But as I said earlier, we're planning on growing capacity faster than the market growing is growing and the market is expected to grow 30% to 40% this year. So it's not doubling. That would take a lot of effort and a lot of capital and probably would distract the team if we tried to double in 12 months.

Speaker 2

It's just not feasible. I'd say that on the chip side, it's you can think of something north of 40% from the June quarter to next June quarter. And then on the run rate for transceivers, we are as you say, we're down from where we were in the March quarter. We're putting capacity in as the opportunities come to fruition. And as I said before, we've made sure we have the shell construction of clean rooms ready and that's kind of the cheaper thing that needs to happen.

Speaker 2

And then we can put equipment in much more rapidly like we talked about with this first win, we're putting capacity in place that will be ready to go and at the end of this year to ramp production into early part of next year. So I hesitate to say we're going to go from X dollars to 2X dollars, but on the transceivers it's certainly we're able to do more than 2x to 3x of what we've done in the past in the next 12 months.

Speaker 4

Got it.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 14

Understood. And for a quick follow-up, would that capacity in Thailand be entirely incremental? Are you moving capacity over from China effectively or shutting that down at all? Are you maintaining that as a base? And I'll leave it there.

Speaker 14

I don't want to get greedy here.

Speaker 2

Yes. That's a good question. I'd say that initially it's incremental because customers don't want us to move existing products. But as we bring on new products, we'll be ramping them more up outside of China than adding more capacity inside of China. So that over time, over the next couple of years, there will be a transition to mainly in Thailand or I should say outside of China because that's what our customers want.

Speaker 2

And I think having a center of excellence in Thailand gives us that capability to move capacity and add capacity in Thailand with our workforce that we've got there.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Tim. Joel, I'd like to be able to squeeze in one more question if we could.

Operator

Absolutely. The next question is from Richard Shannon with Craig Hallum. Your line is now open.

Speaker 5

Great guys. Thanks for taking my question. I think I'm going to spend both of my questions on one multi parter here. And some of the topic was asked earlier here about how to think about your path from current guidance revenues to the $500,000,000 plus level ending next calendar year. Your response to that question is pretty interesting in a number of ways, Alan.

Speaker 5

Maybe I'll broach 2 or 3 of them here, where you said you didn't need much telecom to get there, expecting most of it from email chips, also transitioned 200 gig emails, datacom optical switching and some transceiver stuff here. I'm not sure if that, that last part was intended to be in, like, ascending or descending order of contribution, but, maybe you could comment on that, that would be great. And I guess specifically, I'm quite interested in 2 aspects of this, one of which is, is the optical switching, is that expected to be a meaningful contributor to this growth to get to $500,000,000 And then also, are you not expecting much from telecom or is that just upside if you get it? Thank you.

Speaker 2

That is a multipart question. I'm glad I wrote it down. Thanks, Richard. I'd say there was no method in my rambling of priorities. I'd say if you wanted me to do that, I'd say transceivers would be number 1 growth area.

Speaker 2

I'd say that optical switching is probably bigger in calendar 2026 than and less I would say less meaningful because I think we're counting on meaningful revenue in 2025, but really setting us up for significant growth in 2016 on the optical switching inside the data center. And I already talked about EMLs north of 40% growth over the next 12 months. And then I'd say that I've been hoping that telecom will be bouncing back for the last year. And so I'm not counting on that anymore, although we are seeing some growth in the short term. I do think that we don't need to get back to the pandemic levels and we're not counting on that when we give you that projection for $500,000,000 per quarter.

Speaker 2

So I'd say it's really all about execution on transceivers and awards and EMLs and the transition to 200 gig where the revenue per unit is more than it is for the 100 gigs. I hope that answers your question.

Speaker 6

That added quite a bit to

Speaker 5

it, Alan. Thank you very much. That's all for me.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. Thanks, Richard.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Richard. So with that, I think we're going to wrap the Q and A portion of the call. And I'll pass the call back over to Alan for some concluding remarks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Kathy, and thank you, everyone. I'd like to just leave you with a few thoughts as we wrap up the call. Our agility and photonics leadership position equip us to navigate current market challenges and opportunities. Momentum is at the forefront of the data center revolution, driving chip scale photonics, automated manufacturing and hyperscale cloud partnerships. We are rapidly scaling manufacturing and R and D to capitalize on cloud opportunities and to meet surging data rate demands.

Speaker 2

As we discussed in prior quarters, the Cloudlight acquisition is accelerating our high speed transceiver qualifications and production positioning us for multibillion dollar cloud revenue and over $500,000,000 quarterly revenue by the end of calendar 2025. Thank you all for joining our call today. We look forward to seeing you again at investor conferences and upcoming meetings this quarter. Have a great day.

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Earnings Conference Call
Lumentum Q4 2024
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