TE Connectivity Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 24, 2024

There are 17 speakers on the call.

Operator

thank you for standing by, Welcome to the TE Connectivity Third Quarter Results Call for Fiscal Year 20 24. At this time, all lines are in a listen only mode. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Vice President of Investor Relations, Sujal Shah. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and thank you for joining our conference call to discuss TE Connectivity's Q3 2024 results and outlook for our Q4. With me today are Chief Executive Officer, Terrence Curtin and Chief Financial Officer, Heath Mitts. During this call, we will be providing certain forward looking information,

Speaker 2

and

Speaker 1

we ask you to review the forward looking cautionary statements included in today's press release. In addition, we will be using certain non GAAP measures in our discussion this morning, and and we ask you to review the sections of our press release and the accompanying slide presentation that address the use of these items. The press release and related tables, along with the slide presentation, can be found on the Investor Relations portion of our website atte.com. Finally, during the Q and A portion of today's call, due to the number of participants, we're asking everyone to limit themselves to one question, and you may rejoin the queue if you have a second question. Now let me turn the call over to Terrence for opening comments.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sujal, and I also appreciate everybody joining us today for the call. As I'd like to do before we get into the slides and the details, I do want to take a moment to provide some performance highlights along with what we're seeing versus our call just 90 days ago. As we've shared in our calls throughout this year, we continue to be in a dynamic global economic environment. And I just want to take a few minutes of explaining what that means where you think about where TE is positioned. First off, in our largest market, automotive, we're seeing stability on a global basis.

Speaker 2

In our Industrial Solutions segment, we continue to see growth in 3 out of our 4 businesses. And those businesses are focused on aerospace and defense, energy as well as medical applications. And in our communications segment, like we talked last quarter, we have returned to growth and we are benefiting from acceleration and artificial intelligence applications. Now against these growth areas, we are still being offset by ongoing weakness in just the general industrial markets and we'll highlight where they are throughout the call and the Q and A. Within this backdrop, our sales in the Q3 were in line with our guidance and roughly flat year over year.

Speaker 2

I am pleased that we delivered strong adjusted margin expansion of 200 basis points year over year and adjusted EPS that exceeded our guidance. As we look at our performance year to date, our teams have delivered record adjusted operating margins and earnings per share even in a dynamic market environment, which demonstrates our strong operational performance. Our results continue to reflect successful execution against the key initiatives we committed to coming into this fiscal year. We anticipated a slow demand environment overall in our markets, so our focus has been on driving margin and earnings improvement this year. Our teams have driven strong margin expansion year over year, and this is most evident in our transportation and communication segments.

Speaker 2

The high quality of our earnings continues to be reflected also in our strong cash generation model. And I'm pleased with the record free cash flow of $2,000,000,000 through the 1st 3 quarters of this year. And we do expect this to continue into our Q4. Now let me briefly share what we're seeing in our market since our call 90 days ago and what we're seeing in our order patterns, and I'll get into order patterns in more detail a little bit later. First off, in transportation, our outlook for global auto production is consistent with our view 90 days ago.

Speaker 2

We continue to see growth in China, and that's offsetting incremental weakness in Europe. In our Industrial Solutions segment, our view remains unchanged. We continue to see 3 out of our 4 businesses with growth momentum and continued weakness in industrial equipment end markets. And as I said earlier in our Communications segment, our markets are back to growth and that's in both businesses. And finally, before we get into the slides, I do want to reiterate that our long term value creation model remains unchanged and it's centered around 3 pillars.

Speaker 2

First off is our portfolio is strategically positioned around secular growth trends, including adoption of renewable energy, applications for artificial intelligence and growth in the global hybrid and electric vehicle production, along with further electronification of the vehicle. The 2nd pillar value creation is that we have operational levers to drive strong margin performance through economic cycles and you're seeing the results in this quarter and we have more opportunity as we go forward. And thirdly, we have established a strong cash generation model to return capital to shareholders while investing on bolt on M and A opportunities as the opportunities present themselves. By executing on these pillars, we expect to deliver double digit earnings growth this fiscal year, driven by a couple of 100 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion. As we look beyond this year, we are set up for strong performance.

Speaker 2

We expect to continue to benefit from the secular growth drivers as well as also expect continued growth in areas like commercial aerospace along with normalization of destocking and industrial equipment. This sets us up for an improved growth trajectory leading to further operating earnings growth going forward. Now with that as an overview, I'd like to get into the slides. And if you could look at Slide 3, I'll discuss some of the additional highlights for the Q3 and our outlook for the Q4, then Heath will get into more details as he gets into his section. Our 3rd quarter sales were $4,000,000,000 which was in line with our guidance and up 2% organically year over year.

Speaker 2

Orders of $4,100,000,000 were up year over year and sequentially driven by momentum in artificial intelligence design wins. Adjusted earnings per share was ahead of our guidance at $1.91 and this was up 8% versus the prior year. Adjusted operating margins were 19.3%, up 200 basis points year over year, driven by the strong operational performance of our teams. We are expecting 4th quarter sales of approximately $4,000,000,000 including approximately $60,000,000 of year over year currency exchange headwinds. On the market front, quarter 4 will be another quarter of strong year over year expansion, and we expect adjusted earnings per share to be approximately $1.94 which will be up 9% year over year and which includes a $0.10 headwind from both currency exchange rates and a higher tax rate.

Speaker 2

I talked to you earlier about the performance we've been driving in this market environment. And when you think about what's implied for the full year given our 4th quarter guidance, you really get to see the strong performance. With adjusted earnings per share expected to be up 12% year over year with sales that are essentially flat. So with that as a brief overview, let me get into some more details on order trends and they're on Slide 4 of the presentation we posted. Our orders were up 4% year over year and 3% sequentially at over $4,100,000,000 and we had a book to bill of 1.04.

Speaker 2

As I talk about orders by segment, I will be talking about orders sequentially as we believe this reflects business trends better. At the company level, order growth was driven by the communications segment, which grew over 50% sequentially. Growth was driven primarily by orders for AI applications with multiple customers and reflects that destocking in both data and devices and appliance are behind us. In transportation, you see a slight sequential order decline, but this was really driven by weakness in commercial transportation and our sensors end markets that are tied really to the general industrial market. Our orders in auto were relatively flat sequentially.

Speaker 2

In industrial, order patterns continue to reflect ongoing destocking in industrial equipment and markets. Now let me get into year over year segment results and I'll start with our transportation segment on Slide 5. Our auto business grew 4% organically against a global auto production decline of 1%. Our content growth over production was 5 points in the 3rd quarter with strong double digit organic sales growth in China, more than offsetting declines in Europe and North America. While we continue to see different production dynamics by region as well as some shifts in production of different powertrains, we continue to expect content growth in our second half and longer term to be in the 4 to 6 point range.

Speaker 2

Our growth over market will continue to be driven both by increased electric vehicle and hybrid production and greater electronification of the vehicle. Turning to our commercial transportation business. The 8% organic decline that you see was driven primarily by weakness in Europe. We expect this business to be again down sequentially in the Q4 and expect the markets we serve to be down in the mid to high single digits this fiscal year due to market declines that are happening in the West. In our sensors business, the sales decline continue to be driven by market weakness in industrial applications as well as portfolio optimization efforts that we've discussed with you, where we're continuing to organically exit lower margin and lower growth products.

Speaker 2

For the transportation segment overall, adjusted operating margins were up to over 200 basis points to 21%, driven by continued strong execution on operational levers. We also continue to invest to support next generation vehicles, whether they're around electrification of the powertrain, high speed Ethernet for data applications in the vehicle or miniaturized power and signal products to leverage next generation architectural shifts by our global customers. Now let's get into the Industrial Solutions segment, and that's on Slide 6. In this segment, we continue to see the same trends we've been discussing all year. Sales were down slightly 2% organically.

Speaker 2

Our aerospace, defense and marine business sales were up 19% organically, driven by growth both in commercial aerospace as well as defense markets. In medical, sales in the quarter were up 7% organically, driven by ongoing increases in interventional procedures. And in energy, sales were up 3% organically, driven by strength in the Americas and Europe with continued strong momentum in renewable applications. As you can see on the slide, the pocket weakness for the segment is in the industrial equipment business, where our sales were down 24% organically. While we are starting to see some signs of order patterns flattening, we still expect to see year over year declines in this business in the 4th quarter as our OEM customers and channel partners continue to reduce inventory levels.

Speaker 2

Industrial segment adjusted operating margins were 15.1%, which was in line with our expectations given current volume levels and business mix. We continue to expect the segment margin to run-in the mid teens until the industrial equipment business returns to growth. Now if you could turn to Slide 7 and I'll get into the discussion around the communications segment. First off, and you can see it on the slide, I am excited about the return to year over year growth and our strong margin performance. In data and devices, we grew 32% organically and our design wins are reflecting accelerating momentum.

Speaker 2

I discussed our order momentum earlier. And based upon these wins, we are increasing our near term expectations of AI revenue to over $250,000,000 this year and we expect this to more than double as we get into 2025. In our appliances business, we grew 12% organically, driven by both the Americas and China. From an operating margin perspective, the segment had adjusted margins of 20%. This was up over 600 basis points over last year, driven by the higher volumes coupled with stronger operational performance.

Speaker 2

So with this as a quick summary of our segment performance, let me turn it over to Heath, who's going to get into more details on the financials and our expectations going forward.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Terrence, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 8. And before I get into the details of the financials, I want to reiterate something that Terrence said earlier. We are dealing with a slower market environment. We've talked to you about that throughout the year, but our focus this year, as discussed, has been on improving margins and earnings.

Speaker 3

And I'm pleased to be able to sit here and say that we have set TE records for quarterly adjusted operating margins and earnings per share in the Q3 and we feel good about the momentum going forward. Now the details. Adjusted operating income was $766,000,000 with an adjusted operating margin of 19 point 3%. GAAP operating income was $755,000,000 and included $5,000,000 of acquisition related charges and $6,000,000 of restructuring and other charges. Year to date, restructuring charges are $57,000,000 and for the full year, we continue to expect charges to be approximately $100,000,000 Adjusted EPS was $1.91 and GAAP EPS was 1.86 dollars and included restructuring acquisition and other charges of $0.05 The adjusted effective tax rate was 23% in the 3rd quarter, slightly higher than our guidance due to some jurisdictional rate adjustments.

Speaker 3

And for the Q4 and for the full year, we now expect our adjusted effective tax rate to be approximately 22%. And importantly, as always, I just want to remind you that we continue to expect our cash rate to stay well below our adjusted ETR for the full year. If you turn to Slide 9, we delivered strong margin and EPS expansion along with record year to date free cash flow with sales that are roughly flat year over year. Sales of $4,000,000,000 were down 1% on a reported basis, up 2% on an organic basis year over year, and we are continuing to see headwinds from a stronger dollar, which unfavorably impacted sales by roughly $80,000,000 in the Q3. Adjusted operating margins were 19.3% in the 3rd quarter, expanding 200 basis points year over year, and this was driven by year over year margin expansion in our Transportation and Communications segments.

Speaker 3

Adjusted earnings per share were $1.91 up 8% year over year driven by strong margin expansion and included headwinds of $0.18 from currency exchange and a higher tax rate. Turning to cash flow. Cash from operations was $1,000,000,000 and free cash flow was $867,000,000 in the 3rd quarter. Year to date, we have delivered free cash flow of roughly $2,000,000,000 that's up 36% year over year, and we expect to deliver another year of free cash flow, conversion well above 100%. With the strong free cash generation, we have deployed over $2,200,000,000 so far this year with $1,800,000,000 return to shareholders and approximately $350,000,000 deployed for acquisitions.

Speaker 3

Our cash generation model continues to give us both confidence and opportunities to return capital to shareholders while supporting bolt on M and A activities. And just to reiterate, our long term capital strategy remains unchanged, which is to return approximately 2 thirds of free cash flow to shareholders and use approximately 1 third for bolt on acquisitions over time. And before I turn it over to questions, let me reinforce some of the key points that we discussed today and share how we are thinking about our performance and opportunities going forward. Our team is navigating this environment well. We are delivering margin and EPS expansion while continuing to invest for future growth.

Speaker 3

We are very well positioned to benefit from the secular growth trends and drive further operating earnings growth. We are demonstrating our strong free cash strong cash generation model with a balanced deployment capital. So we remain very excited about the opportunities we have ahead of us to drive value creation for all our stakeholders. And with that, let's now open it up for questions.

Speaker 1

Thanks Heath. Brianna, could you please give the instructions for the Q and A session?

Operator

Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Amit Daryanani with Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I guess, Karen, it's really impressive momentum in CIS side, especially the AI centric business. This is clearly a big topic for investors that are focused on. So I was wondering if you could just talk about what is driving the expectation for higher growth both for this year and next year versus what you had talked about 90 days ago?

Speaker 4

And perhaps you could also just touch on what does your customer mix look like on the AI side and where is the momentum coming from?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Amit, and appreciate the question. First off, I'll get into the different elements. We have to realize this starts with the hyperscalers and cloud CapEx. And when you look at it, that just continues to accelerate and it is incremental CapEx and you're seeing it get put towards AI applications. And as you know, we built a strong position with the cloud customers previously and it's translating into a strong position with AI and the design wins are across customers.

Speaker 2

There isn't one customer here. It is across the hyperscalers. And that's what I get excited about the most on it, the breadth of it. Now as you said, you can see on the order slide I went through earlier, you saw the acceleration in the communication orders that were up 50% or so sequentially. And when we see these orders and design wins coming in, it does take we talked 200 last quarter, some of that will schedule in for this year.

Speaker 2

So that's really why you're seeing the increase to the 250. But with the design wins we've gotten, it gives us confidence to take up it's going to at least double on that 250 into next year with the wins we have. And just to build on who we deal with, these engagements are with the hyperscale customers and realize some of them develop their own AI solutions. And we also have to work with the semiconductor companies, including both the processor companies and the other semi players that make the acceleration chips and other silicon solutions that are so necessary to really make sure you get to these high speed, low latency applications. And the growth that we're seeing is across this entire ecosystem.

Speaker 2

It's not just one customer. And as I said before, I do think this is a space where a few of us really will benefit from because of the investment needed to scale the engineering and the manufacturing, coupled with the technology that needs to happen here. So I do view the momentum is real. These are real design win in orders and we'll continue to keep you updated as we have calls, but certainly like that traction going into 'twenty five as a growth driver on top of the other ones we always talk to you

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Amit. Can we have the next question please?

Operator

Our next question comes from Wamsi Mohan with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thank you so much. Clearly, this was very outstanding Yes. Thank you so much. Clearly, this was very outstanding margin performance in the quarter.

Speaker 5

And I'm just wondering maybe if you could talk about the margin outlook, both in terms of what you're expecting for the segments and how incremental margins should trend in communications in light of this AI momentum? And maybe you could just wrap the rising commodity pricing environment in that I know you guys hedge, but if you could share some color of how we can think about the impact from that as we look over the next 3, 4 quarters? Thank you so much.

Speaker 3

Yes, Wamsi, this is Heath. I'll take this. So I guess, you heard our prepared comments and some of the color around margins. Our focal point as we entered this year, we were very transparent externally as well, is our focus was on margin expansion, which translates into earnings growth as well. We've had some areas of support and some areas of weakness on the top line, but net net, we're hammering through the year.

Speaker 3

Our focus has been on the non volume lever. So that's getting returns on some of the past restructuring actions that we've done. Let's make sure that price is sticking in terms of enough to offset the inflationary pressures and then optimizing the portfolio in certain pockets to improve growth and ultimately margins. So, we're running in that 19% range right now. And my thoughts in terms of as we go into 'twenty five and beyond in terms of how we where those go, our largest opportunity is in the Industrial segment.

Speaker 3

So we continue to target high teens margins in industrial. We're running right now in the mid teens and have been here for a while, which is kind of in line with where we would expect given the pressure that we see in our industrial equipment business. That is our highest margin piece of the segment. And so as we think about it with that business being down, we're holding our head in the mid teens due to the performance of the rest of the segment, which Aerospace, Energy and Medical. But as we return to growth, and particularly in the Industrial Equipment business next year, we would expect some margins to improve and support the overall company margin number.

Speaker 3

In Communications, I think, Wamsi, if you look at when you just go back over the past 3 or 4 years, this segment's margin is very tightly aligned with revenue. And that may seem obvious, but it's more correlated in this segment than anywhere else that we have. And so when we saw outsized revenue in both appliances and D and D in 2020 2021, Parts of 'twenty two, you really saw the margins tick up into the mid-20s, which we said at the time was probably overheated. And then when it corrected back down in 'twenty three and earlier part of this year, you saw the margins back in the mid- to high teens. So as where we are, we have raised the floor in terms of that variability and we feel good about that.

Speaker 3

We're now at a position where we're at about $520,000,000 of revenue and we're generating target margins. And I'll tell you that's a lower revenue to get to that target margin than we had designed originally and resourced the business. So we feel good about that. Now to Terrence's earlier point, we have won and been awarded several AI programs. And there is some investment required there.

Speaker 3

Now that some of that's in our run rate, some of that will be a little bit incremental and that's both on the engineering side as well as our ability to produce and these programs and the timeframe that our customers require. But I think as you think about it going forward, incremental margins on revenue for that segment in that 25% to 30% range is a fair number, which would suggest that as that margin as that revenue ticks up in support of those programs, you should see some margin movement as well. So the team has just done a terrific job there. And then transportation, listen, a year ago, we were talking about how long is it going to take for us to get to target margins, which is 20% for that segment. And we got there much sooner than we thought, and that's largely attributable to the team pulling the levers that they can and really driving some of the price to offset some of the inflationary pressures that we've seen in the last few years.

Speaker 3

We are sitting at 21% this quarter. I'd still say 20% plus some is a good number to model that. We're not going to sit there and after just 3 quarters announce a new target. But I would tell you that the most profitable piece of that business, which is our commercial transportation piece is also the most profitable and it's depressed right now. So as that mix improves, we feel good about that and we feel like we're in a good position certainly as we step into FY 'twenty five starting in October.

Speaker 3

So all that being said, we're confident. The commodity situation is always in flux. As you mentioned, Wamsi, we do hedge our metals. And as those come in, you see that layer in slowly when commodities uptick and when they start to come back down, they're slow to come out. So that helps with our planning, that helps us reduce volatility.

Speaker 3

As we look forward, the teams are very geared up for if we see continued spikes in inflation or anything else, in particular, metals groups or resins, we will pull that pricing lever again. And I think that's one of the things that has improved in our operational muscle memory going through this process. So more to come and as we get into 'twenty five, we'll provide more outlook on that.

Speaker 2

All right.

Speaker 6

Thank you, Wamsi.

Speaker 1

Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Your next question comes from Joe Schack with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Speaker 8

Hey, Jeff.

Speaker 7

I was wondering back to AI. We've been hearing a little bit more about some cross licensing deals between interconnect players for AI. I'm just wondering what you can tell us there. How common is that in other areas of the business? And mechanically, like how would this actually work if it does occur?

Speaker 7

If you manufacture some unlicensed, is that a lower margin profile business or is it relatively even?

Speaker 2

No, Joe. On this, due to the size of this and the ramping that's going to be required, areas where you have this, dual sourcing and cross licensing is very common. There is IP here that the different players have and we work together on how do we make sure we bring the best solution together to our customers and we have said we would expect in this area due to the volumes, the ramping as well as our customers making sure they have certainty of supply, you would see some dual sourcing elements as well as cross licensing. So now that is reality in here and in this space of our data and devices space, this is not new. This has existed for a long time.

Speaker 2

So this is not a new phenomenon.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Joe.

Speaker 2

May we

Speaker 1

have the next question please?

Operator

Your next question comes from Joe Giordano with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hey, good morning, guys.

Speaker 2

Hey, how are you? Good morning, Joe.

Speaker 9

Apologies if you went through some of this. I had to join a couple of minutes late from another call. But Terrence, just curious to hear like your updated thoughts like maybe over the kind of very near term and maybe over like the next 12 to 18 months around hybrid versus EVs, GMs talking about not building a plant, but they were talking about building. So where do you think that sits and what do you do from a fee standpoint to like adapt and adjust to the changing market?

Speaker 2

Yes. No, so thanks, Joe, for the question. One of the things that I said in my opening comments were production very stable in automotive. But I think it's important when you think about EVs, EV production this year and I say EV, I say battery electric, plug in hybrid and hybrids, they're up 20% this year. So when you have global auto production flat, all of the electrified powertrains are up significantly.

Speaker 2

And beginning of the year, we would have thought that would have been 25,000,000 units. It's going to be closer to 24,000,000 units, whereas last year was 20,000,000 units. So with some of the news that you mentioned, sometimes it makes it feel like electrified powertrains are declining. They're not declining. They continue to accelerate And you see different trends around the world.

Speaker 2

And I know on this call, I always have to remind you, 70% of the electric vehicles made in the world are in Asia. And it's one of the things with our global position, it's very important that that's where you see the content outperformance and you don't see some of the bumps that maybe you read in the West. But in Asia overall, the electrified powertrain continues. So in Asia, battery electrics are up 20%, hybrids are up 20%, plug in hybrids are up 50%. And certainly, China drives that.

Speaker 2

But we also have to realize when you get into hybrids, which are in the West, it benefits some of our non Chinese OEM customers, whether they're the Japanese or the Koreans that have really nice product sets and we benefit from that. What you see in the Americas and Europe, you do see people moving more towards pure hybrids. And U. S, Americas, they're up 40%. So consumers are making choices more towards hybrids.

Speaker 2

And you also see they're up 20% in Europe. So you continue to see penetration increase and any of those are good for content for us. So we always tell you a nice engine probably has about $70 on it, A full battery electric is $140 Plug in Hybrid about $120 And certainly, when you get into a hybrid, it's $105, $110 So all of that is good for us. And even as we look forward and we're in planning now, we're going to expect auto production to be flattish and we expect the trends that you're going to see in EV production probably continue to increase like that 20% next year as we move forward. So still a very constructive environment.

Speaker 2

I just always ask you, make sure you're keeping a global perspective on it, not just the Western view on it because that's where the majority of the action is.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Joe. Can we have the next question please?

Operator

Your next question comes from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Your line is

Speaker 10

open. Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question and following up on the auto end market. Hoping to better understand the ability for TE to see revenue benefit in 4Q and into next year from that content growth you were just describing, Terence. I understand the theoretical content increase TE has on hybrids and bevs.

Speaker 10

But at times, companies in the supply chain are affected by new vehicle launch delays, maybe their own key customers aren't selling as many cars or there's inventory corrections. And so as you think about all of those crosscurrents, I'm hoping to better understand, do you think TE can actually see the 4 to 6 points of targeted outgrowth in automotive show up in its revenue when you think about your own customer exposure and that content potential? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mark. And let me just start with the punchline. The answer is yes. We feel very confident with it. I just spent there with Joe a little bit talking about the powertrain differences.

Speaker 2

And the powertrain is an important content driver, but it's not the only content driver. When you sit there and you think about, I mentioned it in my prepared comments, when you get data connectivity that's needed in the vehicle for autonomy, that's also needed for all the other data that you need in the vehicle, That creates an additional architecture that also benefits content. And the other thing is as people continue to look at other features that are added around safety applications, They continue to evolve the architecture around the traditional backbone 1248 volt to really make sure the vehicle comes to life for the features the consumer expects. And all three of those elements benefit our content. I know we call 1 electrification and the other one electronification, but we benefit from both of those.

Speaker 2

And I think you look at this quarter, this quarter with the 5 points of outperformance, we grew in a declining auto production environment. Basically, our view proves it and we feel confident it will continue to build moving forward. The other thing that, hey, you will have some lumps of time like you said, due to platform change and things like that. But one of the great things about TE is because we're essentially on every car in the world, you really never hear us talk about that. It's where our great global position really comes into play.

Speaker 2

And I think it really is important to our customers as we bring them technology, but also as an investor, you don't get to you never hear us talking about this customer or that platform impacting us. So feel very good about the 4 to 6 and feel very good about the design wins we continue to get in automotive.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Mark. We have next question, please.

Operator

Your next question comes from Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I guess I was going to ask this more on a company sort of aggregate revenue level. All through the year, your revenues have been in the sort of 3.8 $1,000,000,000 to $4,000,000,000 range even as sort of AI revenues have ramped.

Speaker 11

I mean, as we go into next year, when we put AI aside, where do you think we are in the cyclical recovery where you should see growth? What drives that confidence? Because when we look at the sort of revenue track record this year, it's been fairly sequentially flat. Outside of AI, how should we think about growth really sort of from a cyclical perspective in some of these end markets? What kind of magnitude of growth should we be thinking about?

Speaker 11

What drives that confidence?

Speaker 2

No. So Samik, thank you for the question. I think first thing, AI, we've laid out very clearly. I think the other thing that you're going to have that you have to be there is the 4 to 6 points on top in automotive. We do think you should be planning and we're planning a flattish environment.

Speaker 2

So I do think you're going to see that. On top of that, I wouldn't be lost on the trends that are really being masked right now in our industrial segment due to destocking, destocking will end. You even see it in our appliance business is very important. So you've seen our appliance business return to growth, some of that is destocking and you're going to see that in industrial equipment. And then some of the other industrial cycles may be a little bit middle to later in the year.

Speaker 2

But it is very important that as you sit there, destocking has had a big impact on our revenue this year earlier than you're probably pushing $100,000,000 of headwind. So they're the types of things that I think build. Some of them are content, some of those are certainly market. But I think they're the things that get us excited about the growth momentum. And I know I said flattish earlier, I meant flattish production in automotive from a planning, not content.

Speaker 2

Content will be on top of the production environment. So just to correct that since I didn't complete my thought.

Operator

Your next question comes from Asia Merchant with Citigroup. Your line is open. Great.

Speaker 12

Thank you for taking my call my question. On the cash flow, obviously, a great quarter here. As you guys think about revenues ramping here and especially in the AI segment, maybe if you could talk to us about your CapEx commitment as we look into fiscal 2025? And I think you're talking about AI revenues more than doubling now. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Sure. And I appreciate the question. First of all, our CapEx runs roughly from modeling perspective about 5% of revenue. At different times, we'll run just under that and different times, we'll run just modest over that, but that's a good planning assumption. Inside that, in that run rate, you have to assume all of the growth areas that we've been talking about today have been supported.

Speaker 3

So whether that's the things around the content outperformance relative to automotive, which is largely driven by the electronification as well as the adoption of the various powertrains. Some of that CapEx has supported tooling and product lines that we've had to put in place that are in those. So that's not going to be incremental pressure as we move forward. Now we are ramping up a little bit of CapEx, but to support some of the AI applications, particularly coming out of Asia. We've opened a facility in the Philippines.

Speaker 3

Some of that is in our run rate as well. And there will be other trade offs that we make as we do across the portfolio. But I don't see anything that's put incremental pressure on our CapEx that's going to materially change that planning assumption because some things that will come on that will need a support for the AI applications and product lines, there will be other things that come off because we've completed some expansion in other areas whether that's in industrial or otherwise. So it's kind of always a rolling process for us, but I still think we can absorb this within our CapEx profile.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Assia. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Your next question comes from Christopher Glynn with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 8

Hey, Chris. I just

Speaker 13

wanted to ask generally about order patterns and any particular insights into markets under the quarter or under the book to bill. In particular, I think you had the positive book to bill at Industrial Solutions with still industrial equipment destocking. So it seems like the persistence at the other markets is pretty high visibility. But maybe take that question where you will.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Chris. And what you presume about industrial is right on. And in communications, clearly, you see the benefit of the AI orders as well as our appliance business had nice growth as well. So, tying back to where we see destocking ending, you're seeing that strength and getting back to at least market and then some. When you look across the other dynamics that we continue to see, number 1 is there was a point in time probably 3 quarters ago, we would talk about backlog.

Speaker 2

Our backlog continues to be strong. And what you see is the service levels, our service levels to our customers come up. You see people saying, hey, I want to work on my backlog a little bit. Why do I need something if it was an 8 to 10 week lead time? Why do I need backlog out this quarter?

Speaker 2

So we do see that those effects happening in those areas where our service levels are very strong. So in places like auto, our service levels have returned above pre COVID levels. So you see some of those factors. And then in the general industrial spaces, and that is our industrial equipment market. That is our commercial transportation market.

Speaker 2

In our sensors business that we have pivoted to transportation and industrial, the industrial piece. You just see ongoing weakness that's pretty global and I would also say just sort of moving sideways. So if you peel those out, you would say, boy, your orders look really strong, really nice position. But they're just areas where we're seeing pockets of destocking. It is both with OEMs as well as distribution partners.

Speaker 2

And we are seeing some signs that's starting to move sideways, which is a good first sign, but it still seems like it's taking a little bit longer to work through in that general industrial space. But it will come to an end here. They always do. It's just I can't give you the exact date.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Chris. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Your next question comes from Saree Boroditsky with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Speaker 14

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. Going back to the AI conversation, you previously talked about $400,000,000 in sales next year. I think you just increased that to 500,000,000 Given this increase, could you just give us an update on the $1,000,000,000 sales estimate and what's the time frame for that?

Speaker 14

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2

No. I think when you look at that, clearly with the trajectory that we have, that will probably move in a little bit. We're going to continue to keep you updated on that as we have design wins. But you do have an element here, we are taking next year's up versus the 400 we just told you 90 days ago. So I think the $1,000,000,000 is definitely confident, but the timing will be slid in a little bit, and we'll continue to keep you updated on it.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you, Sari. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Your next question comes from Luke Junk with Baird. Your line is open.

Speaker 15

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Terrence, one of the things you highlighted in your remarks that I thought was interesting around auto investment specifically was miniaturized products for next gen architectural shifts. Can you just double click on that trend with respect to potential impacts to content? And it sounds like it's more engineering intensive and maybe margins as well.

Speaker 15

And this is an area, of course, that's gotten a lot of attention architecture that is in the wake of Rivian and VW. So maybe if you could just revisit that overall trend for TE as well? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. No, it does create content opportunity and it's one of the things that I think is important when you talk about content. Clearly, we get a benefit as you move to high voltage architectures around the powertrain. But you have to realize there's a whole other architecture that exists to move data around as well as power and signal around in the car. And both of those trends impact every vehicle, not just an electric vehicle.

Speaker 2

So data, I think, is clear. But as everybody continues to want more features and functionality in the car, whether you get into zonal architecture, whether you want to get into centralized compute, while that simplifies and rationalize the harness, the interconnects get more miniaturized and much more complex. And in those situations, that does is part of the content driver we have. So anytime you think and you sit in a car, forget about the engine running, but every other feature you sit there when you move to a new vehicle that you expect, there's connectivity associated with it because power and signal and data need to move around, whether it's sensing something on the front end of the car, sensing something in the braking system, it needs to transmit that power signal and data someplace. And all of that are real hard architectural problems and our engineers at the design centers where our OEM customers are and that's where we design is really where that magic occurs that drives that content growth.

Speaker 2

And these are things that don't stop because people are only working on electric vehicles. That's architecture that helps OEMs compete. It also gets people consumers what they want and it's where our teams excel. So sometimes I think it's taken for granted when we talk about content, but that's the electronification element of content and that's why we feel so confident about the 4 to 6, both the electrification and electronification that happens in the vehicle really help drive that content.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, Luke. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Your next question comes from Colin Langan with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Actually, I was just going to follow-up on the zonal architecture question. I know there's been talk that if you go to zonal, there's actually less wires and connectors. I think that's when you put in these big domains.

Speaker 6

It sounds like you don't see an impact there. Is it really just the wiring that's impacted as you go to zonal and you're actually still seeing the same or higher content connectors? Or is there a little bit of a content loss as you shift from a traditional architecture to the future zonal?

Speaker 2

No, it's a great question. Actually, when you go from you get wire reduction and harness simplification, you don't get connector simplification, because you're still going to need a power signal or data transfer that occurs. It may be in a simplified wire structure or a different type of cable. But what you come into when you get into that zone is you have a much more complex connector. So something that might have been only transmitting one signal, you might have something that's transmitting 400 different signals and that gets into a higher contact count, more complex connector into that compute and that's actually areas where we actually drive content increase.

Speaker 2

So when you get into those areas of zone rules and things like that, that everybody talks about and been talking about for a long time, typically again, the more complex, more engineered connectors that drive more increased content for us. It certainly simplifies the harness, but it does not simplify the connectivity.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you, Colin.

Speaker 2

Can we

Speaker 1

have the next question, please?

Operator

Your next question comes from William Stein with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 16

Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Speaker 9

Hi, Will.

Speaker 16

In the prepared remarks, I think it was Heath who mentioned the potential for bolt on M and A a couple of times. We've seen one of your competitors really accelerate M and A investments recently. And the number of years, you guys haven't been very visible. I'll say there may have been tuck ins that perhaps you didn't announce or maybe I even skipped them. But I was wondering if you can just remind us of your strategy and tactics when it relates to this issue, your perhaps end market focus or technology focus, returns, metrics, hurdles, anything that you can help us understand and maybe dimension of the opportunity for?

Speaker 16

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Well, thanks, Will. This is Heath. I think it's and I appreciate the question. Listen, our comment around bolt on M and A being a focus is not new. We've been talking about that here for a couple of years.

Speaker 3

When we say bolt on, it doesn't always necessarily have to be small though. Bolt ons mean they're things that are kind of are similar to what we do in markets that we do and technologies that we understand and the production environments we understand. And so those tend to be things like the Ernie acquisition in industrial equipment or the Schaffner acquisition we completed in December, which is also in the industrial equipment business, things that enhance our portfolio and give us an opportunity to drive value through some of the operational and sales synergies. So when we say bolt on, it doesn't always have to be small. It just means that it's not very far from adjacent to us.

Speaker 3

Now our focus is across the businesses, but admittedly, there are some businesses that we have been focused on a little bit more internal self help. And as that as we progress through those things and that is reflected in some of the margin improvement that you've seen, we will businesses be pivoting a little bit more towards M and A focus. I would tell you that the pipeline, particularly in the industrial spaces, and that's not just the industrial equipment, but the industrial spaces in general in that segment, the pipeline is more robust than it has been in a very long time, a lot of cultivation activities, and we feel very good about our ability to see an uptick in transactions there. Now I'm not about to go on record and try to quote a dollar amount because although that would be more satisfying answer for you, these things come in a little bit more lumpy and things outside our control in terms of how processes go and how sellers react. In terms of us being more quiet, I can't speak on that relative to others, but I would say that we are a return focused company and we are looking we're not just going to buy growth for the sake of growth.

Speaker 3

We are looking for things that we are the right owner of and things that have a good financial return for our owners. And so in certain environments, the last few years, we've seen elevated acquisition prices and we have to be cautious on some of those things. At the same time, we know where our sweet spot is. We know where we can drive value and we've proven that to ourselves in a few of these transactions we've done last couple of years. So I think you'll continue to see us talk more about this as a bigger part of our story over the next year or 2.

Speaker 3

And I think but I think a lot of it will be in the industrial space as I look at where the opportunity sits today. So I appreciate the question and the opportunity to provide a little more color on that.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you, Will. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Our final question comes from Shreyas Patel with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hey, thanks so much for taking my question. Hey, Shrestha. Hey, Heath, you talked about the strength you're seeing in transportation, particularly on the profitability side. Just trying to think about the puts and takes from here. I mean, typically incremental margins are in the low 30s, commercial transportation volume should improve at some point next year.

Speaker 8

And there are additional restructuring savings in the pipeline coming in 2025 and 2026. So what are we missing as we think about the puts and takes and how margins could actually go from here? And then maybe just to put a finer point on the earlier question on the new automotive architectures. Are you seeing wins today in this area? There are a few OEMs that are ahead of the curve.

Speaker 8

So just curious what you're seeing with

Speaker 2

them as well. Yes. Let me answer the second part and then I'll let Heath Shrey answer your first part. We're absolutely seeing these wins. We've been working on these designs.

Speaker 2

In some cases, some designs never made it for decades. So when you think about these architectural changes, we are working on them. Even with the EV move, OEMs around the globe actually jumped to some of these architectures because they weren't evolving legacy architectures. So that is part of our content story. We are seeing it.

Speaker 2

What's great is our team see that content uplift when you have these moves. But certainly, it's by OEM, by OEM and also by the platform design evolutions that they're going through. But clearly see that in our turbines. And I'll hand it over to Heath for the first part of your question.

Speaker 3

Yes. Listen, Trish, I think when I think about the margin journey that transportation has been on, a lot of it has been self help around restructuring. And we have moved over the last several years a fair amount of activity in terms of production environments out of Western places out of Western markets in terms of where production is and into places where we can take advantage of our scale in places like Eastern Europe, Morocco, Mexico and in parts of Asia. So that has had a nice uplift and it has not been cheap or painless. The team has executed well and we appreciate our owners' patience as we spent some of their money to do some of this restructuring.

Speaker 3

Now you do see some of that reflected in the margins. The other piece is around price. And price is something that historically, we've kind of been kind of I don't know what normal is anymore. But if you go pre pandemic years, we would have said price is kind of minus 1%, minus 1% to 2% a year, particularly in automotive. Certainly, we've tightened that up.

Speaker 3

Price is not a tailwind, but it's not as much of a headwind. And as we think about where that will track very closely to where we see input costs and inflations there, both on the labor and on the material side. And the team is there's a new last couple of years, there's a much tighter discipline there around our thinking. Now having said all that, you have to remember, it wasn't but this time last year when people were asking the same question you are, but they were asking when do you get from the high teens up to 20%. And we put a lot of leg work in, the team has executed really well this year to the point we are.

Speaker 3

We will continue to evaluate that. I think your 30% incrementals is probably a good number. The recovery of the commercial transportation market, as you mentioned, is a nice help for us. But you also have to remember that even though commercial transportation has been down from a top line, they've held their head internally on the margin front. And so there's opportunity there.

Speaker 3

And then quite honestly, there's opportunity in our Sensors business to continue to improve margins as we've exited some lower margin net programs. So when you add all that up, yes, your math would suggest that we are going to move above 20, but give us the opportunity to work through there and contemplate everything before we start issuing new targets. So I do appreciate your questions, Shreyas.

Speaker 2

All right.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Shreyas. If there's no further questions, I'd like to thank everybody for joining us today. If you have additional questions, please contact Investor Relations at TE. Thanks, everyone, and have a nice day.

Operator

Today's conference call will be available for replay beginning at 11:30 am Eastern Time today, July 24th on the Investor Relations portion of TE Connectivity's website. That will conclude the conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
TE Connectivity Q3 2024
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