Monolithic Power Systems Q1 2022 Earnings Report

Monolithic Power Systems EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.65
• Consensus EPS: $1.62
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.86

Monolithic Power Systems Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $377.71 million
• Expected Revenue: $360.26 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$17.45 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Monolithic Power Systems Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2022
• Date: 5/2/2022
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Monday, May 2, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Monolithic Power Systems (NASDAQ:MPWR) (NASDAQ:MPWR) designs, develops and markets high-performance semiconductor solutions, with a focus on power management. Its products help regulate, convert and control electrical power in electronic systems, enabling more efficient operation in applications ranging from computing and communications equipment to automotive, industrial and consumer devices.

The company’s portfolio includes DC-to-DC converters, power modules, battery chargers, power-management integrated circuits, motor drivers, LED drivers, voltage regulators and other analog semiconductor products. Monolithic Power Systems also provides solutions for power management, automotive electronics, data centers, telecommunications infrastructure, industrial equipment and consumer electronics.

Founded in 1997, Monolithic Power Systems is headquartered in Kirkland, Washington. The company serves customers internationally through a global sales, engineering and distribution network, with operations and design resources in North America, Asia and Europe. Founder Michael Hsing has served as the company’s chief executive officer.

Monolithic Power Systems Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• MPS reported Q1 revenue of $377.7 million, up 48.4% year-over-year, driven by broad-based market share gains and strong adoption of new product introductions.
• The company began separate reporting for Storage & Computing ($96.6 million, +23.9% QoQ) and Enterprise Data ($42.5 million, +5.0% QoQ), underscoring growth in client computing and data-center/cloud segments.
• Q1 gross margin improved to 57.9% GAAP (+30 bps QoQ) and 58.3% non-GAAP (+40 bps), while net income rose to $79.6 million GAAP ($1.65/share) and $118.3 million non-GAAP ($2.45/share).
• Operating cash flow jumped to $107.4 million, and cash plus investments reached $775.9 million, reflecting deliberate inventory builds and capacity investments underpinned by long-term planning.
• For Q2 2022, MPS guided $420–440 million in revenue, 58.4–59.0% GAAP gross margin, and $132.7–136.7 million non-GAAP operating income, reinforcing its path toward a $4 billion revenue run-rate.

Presentation

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Welcome everyone to the MPS first quarter 2022 earnings webinar. Please note that this webinar is being recorded and will be archived for one year on our investor relations page at www.monolithicpower.com. My name is Genevieve Cunningham, and I will be the moderator for this webinar. Joining me today are Michael Hsing, CEO and founder of MPS, and Bernie Blegen, VP and CFO. In the course of today's conference call, we will make forward-looking statements and projections that involve risk and uncertainty, which could cause results to differ materially from management's current views and expectations. Please refer to the safe harbor statement contained in the earnings release published today.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ are identified in the safe harbor statements contained in the Q1 earnings release and in our SEC filings, including our Form 10-K filed on February 25th, 2022, which is accessible through our website. MPS assumes no obligation to update the information provided on today's call. We will be discussing gross margin, operating expense, R&D, and SG&A expense, operating income, other income before income taxes, net income, and earnings on both a GAAP and a non-GAAP basis. These non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with GAAP and should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

A table that outlines the reconciliation between the non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures is included in our Q1 2022 earnings release, which we have furnished to the SEC and is currently available on our website. I'd also like to remind you that today's conference call is being webcast live over the internet and will be available for replay on our website for one year, along with the earnings release filed with the SEC earlier today. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bernie.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Thanks, Gen. MPS posts record first quarter revenue of $377.7 million, 48.4% higher than the first quarter of 2021. The year-over-year revenue increase represented strength in the overall market and, more importantly, broad-based market share gains resulting from customer acceptance of our new product introductions. Before looking at our revenue by market, I would like to call to your attention a change in our reporting. In order to provide increased visibility on data center and cloud computing revenue, we broke out reporting for computer and storage into two separate line items. The table has been included in this webinar showing the company's quarterly revenue on this basis since 2017. The first line item is called storage and computing, which primarily refers to total storage and client computing revenue.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

The second line item is called enterprise data, which captures revenue from data center and cloud computing. In our storage and computing market, first quarter 2022 revenue of $96.6 million increased $18.6 million, or 23.9% from the fourth quarter of 2021, due primarily to higher storage and commercial notebook sales. Storage and computing revenue represented 25.6% of MPS's first quarter 2022 revenue, compared with 20.2% in the first quarter of 2021. In our enterprise data market, first quarter 2022 revenue of $42.5 million increased 5.0% from the fourth quarter of 2021, due primarily to continuing strength in data center and workstation computing sales.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Enterprise data revenue represented 11.3% of MPS's first quarter 2022 revenue, compared with 6.4% in the first quarter of 2021. First quarter 2022 communications revenue of $55.6 million rose $9.7 million, or 21.1% from the fourth quarter of 2021. The quarter-over-quarter increase primarily reflected higher revenue related to 5G build-outs and satellite communications. Communications revenue represented 14.7% of MPS's first quarter 2022 revenue, compared with 14.2% in the first quarter of 2021. First quarter 2022 revenue from consumer markets of $80.0 million increased $13.6 million, or 20.6% from the fourth quarter of 2021. This sequential quarterly improvement, the sequential revenue increase reflected a broad-based increase, particularly related to our IoT business.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Consumer revenue represented 21.2% of our Q1 revenue, compared with a 26.0% contribution in the first quarter of 2021. First quarter 2022 automotive revenue of $54.5 million decreased 3.2% from the fourth quarter of 2021. Automotive revenue represented 14.4% of MPS's first quarter 2022 revenue, compared with 17.6% in the previous year. In our industrial market, revenue of $48.5 million was essentially flat with revenue recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021. Industrial revenue represented 12.8% of our first quarter revenue, compared with 15.6% in the prior year. Moving now to a few comments on gross margin.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

GAAP gross margin was 57.9%, 30 basis points higher than the fourth quarter of 2021 and 250 basis points higher than the first quarter of 2021. Our GAAP operating income was $96.1 million compared with $78.6 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the first quarter of 2022, non-GAAP gross margin was 58.3%, 40 basis points better than the fourth quarter of 2021 and 250 basis points better than the first quarter of 2021. Our non-GAAP operating income was $133.6 million compared to $112.0 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2021.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

On both a GAAP and a non-GAAP basis, the sequential quarterly gross margin improvement was primarily due to a better product mix as revenue from higher value new product introductions are ramping. Let's review our operating expenses. Our GAAP operating expenses were $122.7 million in the first quarter of 2022, compared with $115.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Our non-GAAP first quarter 2022 operating expenses were $86.6 million, up from the $83.0 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2021. The differences between non-GAAP operating expenses and GAAP operating expenses for the quarters discussed here are stock compensation expense, amortization of purchased intangibles, and income or loss on an unfunded deferred compensation plan.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

For the first quarter of 2022, stock compensation expense, including approximately $1.3 million charged to cost of goods sold, was $39.8 million compared with $31.2 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021. Switching to the bottom line, first quarter 2022 GAAP net income was $79.6 million, or $1.65 per fully diluted share, compared with $72.7 million, or $1.51 per share in the fourth quarter of 2021. First quarter 2022 non-GAAP net income was $118.3 million, or $2.45 per fully diluted share, compared with $102.1 million or $2.12 per fully diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2021.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Fully diluted shares outstanding at the end of Q1 2022 were $48.2 million. Now let's look at the balance sheet. Cash, cash equivalents, and investments were $775.9 million at the end of the first quarter of 2022, compared to $727.5 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. For the quarter, MPS generated operating cash flow of about $107.4 million, compared with operating cash flow of $28.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. First quarter 2022 capital spending totaled $26.9 million.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Accounts receivable ended the first quarter of 2022 at $120.3 million with 29 days of sales outstanding, up one day from 28 days at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. Our internal inventories at the end of the first quarter of 2022 were $311.0 million, up from $259.4 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. Days in inventory increased to 178 days at the end of Q1 2022, compared with 166 days at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. Historically, we've calculated days in inventory on hand as a function of the current quarter revenue. We believe comparing current inventory levels with the following quarter's projected revenue provides a better economic match.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

On this basis, again, as you can see, days in inventory increased to 159 days at the end of the first quarter of 2022, up from 149 days at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. I would now like to turn to our outlook for the second quarter of 2022. We are forecasting Q2 revenue in the range of $420 million-$440 million. We also expect the following. GAAP gross margin in the range of 58.4%-59.0%. Non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 58.7%-59.3%. GAAP R&D and SG&A expenses between $132.7 million and $136.7 million.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Non-GAAP R&D and SG&A expenses to be in the range of $90.0 million-$92.0 million. This estimate excludes stock compensation and litigation expenses.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Total stock-based compensation expense of $44.2 million-$46.2 million, including approximately $1.5 million that would be charged to cost of goods sold. Litigation expenses ranging between $2.3 million and $2.7 million. Interest and other income is expected to range from $1.3 million-$1.7 million before foreign exchange gains or losses. Fully diluted shares to be in the range of $47.8 million-$48.8 million shares. In conclusion, we will continue to execute our long-term plan for sustainable growth. I will now open the webinar up for questions.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Thank you, Bernie. Analysts, I would now like to begin our Q&A session. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please click on the participant's icon on the menu bar and then click the Raise Hand button. Our first question is from Ross Seymore of Deutsche Bank. Ross, your line is now open.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Didn't pick up. Gen, if Ross is not there, perhaps we can move on.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Alessandra Vecchi of William Blair. Alex, your line is now open.

[Alessandra Vecchi, Senior Publishing Analyst Covering SMID Semiconductors at William Blair]

Hey everyone. Congratulations on a great quarter in a tough environment. Maybe you can address a little bit the supply constraints in some of the China COVID impact. It seems like you guys came out from that completely unscathed. I'd be interested in some of the dynamics that have allowed you to do that.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Well, Alessandra Vecchi, we planned this kind of ramp not from the last year, from not from this year or last year, many years ago. You remember in 2017, even 2016, we said that we're going to a lot of green field products will growth and exactly we don't know. It's going to be plus or minus a year or so. We plan a lot of every aspect, including logistics and fab, assembly house, and our internal testing. This is not a one-year thing. We planned a long time ago. Now some, okay, when the revenues ramp is a little better than we anticipated.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

That's why you see the result now.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

If I can add to that, we've also built inventories so that at 178 days, we're just at the lower end of our goal being between 180 and 200 days, which provides us a good insurance policy as we look ahead to achieving our numbers for the second half of the year.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. Even at the end of the second half of 2019, then the business is not as great, but we built according to our plan, and we know the business will come. At the time, I remember our inventory is over 200 days. That part of it, inventories of them, made our customers feel a lot more reliable, MPS as a major player.

[Alessandra Vecchi, Senior Publishing Analyst Covering SMID Semiconductors at William Blair]

Okay. That's really helpful. Thank you. Maybe one for you, Bernie, just on gross margin. Margins have been very strong as of late. You've alluded to product mix. Just on that front, how much more runway do you think you have on the gross margin front from the uplift on sort of your new products going forward?

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Sure. As you've seen, both in the results that we had for Q1 along with our guidance for Q2, which positions us around 59% gross margin, I think we've done a fair job of digesting is the incorrect word but acknowledging the uplift in the margins as a result of our product mix. Again, I'll give the same answer I did last time that we believe that we've created a new floor on gross margin from which we can expand 10-20 basis points sequentially. Again, if opportunistically we see a basket which allows us to take it up another, we'll be happy to take that.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

I want to emphasize that, while most of our peer companies have benefited both in terms of revenue growth and margin expansion from price increases, ours has been driven primarily by the change in revenue mix, which is favoring these higher value products. It was only in February of this year that we did a broad-based increase of our prices. That was still far below what the market has seen.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Just a pass on the cost to our customers. As the margin expansion in our case, we said earlier, said in 2017 or 2018, we don't have a headwind. About 2019, the market slows down a little bit, and we build up a lot of amortizations and inventory in the pipeline. Our margin went slightly lower, but it's not much lower. Now you see these margins continue to grow.

[Alessandra Vecchi, Senior Publishing Analyst Covering SMID Semiconductors at William Blair]

That's helpful. With that, I'll go back into queue.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Okay.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Matthew Ramsay of TD Cowen. Matt, your line is now open.

[Matthew Ramsay, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at TD Cowen]

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. Can you guys hear me all right?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yes.

[Matthew Ramsay, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at TD Cowen]

Hey, Michael, I guess for either one of you guys, it was interesting that you're breaking out sort of the data center piece from the PC and storage business. I guess I wonder a couple things about that, like what maybe you guys are trying to signal by breaking those out separately. In particular, the new enterprise data segment is up, I don't know, 160% year-over-year, but that's really before the two primary server processor vendors launch with new sockets this year. Michael, could you maybe talk a little bit about the reason for breaking that out and the relative growth rates you guys expect of these two new segments as we go forward? Thanks.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah, if you combine them all together, it's a kind of. In the past, we answered those questions anyway. When we report it, so one line, some numbers. Which is more often more clear and, I mean, put it out, you guys know it. We have less meaningful questions. Bernie wants to step in now.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Sure.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Any other reasons? Okay.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

I think Matt you did a good job of saying that this is clearly an inflection point for us, inflection year, which will gain momentum as we see both Intel and AMD are positioned for product releases coming up here. That in addition to the expanding footprint we have in both 48-volt and artificial intelligence, we believe that this will be one of our areas for sustainable growth for certainly the next three to five years. Exactly as Michael said, we believe that providing better transparency is definitely better information for our investors.

[Matthew Ramsay, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at TD Cowen]

No, thanks. Thanks to you both for that. That's helpful. I guess if you look at the second quarter guidance that you provided, $430 million at the midpoint was quite a bit above where consensus was and certainly where my model was. Bernie, if you might take a second to walk us through by segment, how you're thinking about the growth being concentrated, that would be really helpful. Thanks, guys.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. I think that on a dollar and percent basis, we're going to see an accelerating ramp in enterprise, particularly during the second half of the year. I think we're going to see continued growth in our storage and computing, albeit probably not at the same rate. Part of the reason for that is that storage tends to be a precursor, at least in our experience, to a data center ramp. I think in each of the two prior quarters, we've seen a good strong ramp in storage, and now we're expecting two to three quarters in the data center.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

In the rest of the business, communications, as we said, we've broadened into not only 5G but also into satellite communications, and that's gonna continue to be a driver for foreseeable future. In the other areas, obviously consumer, that is coming along. We emphasized Internet of Things, we actually growth there is broad-based.

[Matthew Ramsay, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at TD Cowen]

All right. Thanks very much, guys.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Thank you.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Quinn Bolton of Needham. Quinn, your line is now open.

[Quinn Bolton, Managing Director and Equity Research at Needham]

Hey, guys. Let me offer my congratulations as well. Wanted to come back to Alex's question about China. Obviously, you source most of your assembly and wafer capacity in China, and I just, you know, given the zero COVID policy in China and some of the resulting lockdowns, are you rethinking the need to diversify outside of China, either on the assembly and test or assembly and wafer foundry side? Then as, I guess, a related question, I think most of your final test takes place in Chengdu. Have you any contingency plans in place in case Chengdu is put under lockdown due to COVID?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. We started a couple years ago. We already started doing so. As you know that China is and manufacturing in Asia is the center of the world, and we can't elaborate too much about it. Okay? I mean, if they have a serious problem, so like I think that everybody worry about even bigger things. Yes, the answer is yes. Okay, we already started looking, establishing in a different political environment in this.

[Quinn Bolton, Managing Director and Equity Research at Needham]

In Chengdu, Michael, do you have test capacity outside of Chengdu if Chengdu goes under lockdown?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yes. As of about a couple years ago, but maybe it's a little more than 12 months ago we started.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. With the testing capacity in Chengdu, we've concentrated that on some of our higher value parts, including automotive. Now, as Michael just said, is now we've started transition, where we can actually have third parties. We actually have a built-in contingency plan.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Oh, yeah. Outside Chengdu only, yes, we have other than these high reliability product, okay, we testing in our site. Other than that, okay, we do pretty high volumes if it's not half of it. Okay?

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

More than.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

It's in a different facility. When I talk about it, I just mentioned about it is outside China.

[Quinn Bolton, Managing Director and Equity Research at Needham]

Got it. Okay. My follow-up question is around the internal inventory level that you guys have done an absolutely fantastic job of increasing that in a very tight supply environment. I guess my question is, as you're approaching now the low end of your target range of 180-200 days, can you tell us what's going on with lead times? I would think as internal inventories get up to your target level, that may give you the, you know, the ability to start to reduce lead times to potentially gain even more market share. Wondering if you could give us a sense what's going on with lead times, given that the increase in internal inventory levels. Thank you.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our lead time in this quarter is the same as the last quarter. Probably even our booking. I don't see anything. The rate of a booking is not reduced. Bernie, you said, and then you.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

No, you took my answer on both fronts that lead times have remained very consistent in each of the last three quarters. What you're seeing as far as the build with inventories, it has been a very conscious and deliberate decision to build the inventories in advance, particularly on the enterprise side to meet the demand we expect the second half of the year. I think that we've done a good job of positioning ourselves under what has now become uncertain environment.

[Quinn Bolton, Managing Director and Equity Research at Needham]

Thank you.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Mm-hmm.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from William Stein of Truist. William, your line is now open.

[William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Technology at Truist]

Great. Thanks so much for taking my question, and congrats on the very strong result, and especially the outlook. You know, we understand though that while we see a great number overall, in particular for the guidance, there's always moving parts, you know, when we look at it on a more detailed level. I wonder if you're seeing either perhaps owing to customers focusing on getting balanced kits or full sets or however you want to call it, or if you're seeing anything related to Ukraine or the lockdowns in China, whether any of these factors is influencing either the order rates or the backlog. For example, if none of these things were happening, the outlook would've been even stronger. Any qualification you can provide us would be helpful.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the MPS is like selling jellybeans. We are not a dominant application supplier. We're like selling in that way. I mean, whatever we ship is that these are the small part of the solutions. We don't know. That's actually our model. That's the beauty of it. We don't know where these parts ended up. Whether the war affected us, and we're very much diversified, we actually don't know. This is stupid. With that, they're calling the earnings.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

To answer your questions, like, I mean, only things that yeah we do know where the product goes to the data centers. The product, it goes to a customer. Okay. I mean, we pretty much know, okay, where the product ended up. Okay. Other than that, we don't.

[William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Technology at Truist]

Okay. Thank you.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Again, just.

[William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Technology at Truist]

Thank you for that insight. Sorry?

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Just reinforcing the answer from before. There is no significant KPI, whether it's in the bookings or any other area of our business that we're seeing a change from the past two to three quarters.

[William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Technology at Truist]

That's helpful, thank you. Michael Hsing, you've talked about various levels of revenue that you could achieve at full utilization. In other words, the capacity that you're building for. I know this started a couple of years ago, well, I'm sure it's ongoing really. The capacity, you know, and the upsides that we've seen over the last few quarters, of course, those were not, you know, planned very quickly. They were planned a long time ago. Can you remind us or maybe update us on the medium to long-term capacity planning that's in place today? What levels of total capacity we can expect over the next few quarters? Thank you.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah, that's a good question. I think that we answered that question, okay, last quarter. We said that we're gonna plan $4 billion of revenues in the next couple of years. That's what we do, okay? We continue to invest.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. I think just to sort of lend some credibility to that, you recall it was about a year ago that we offered that by the end of Q2 in 2022 that we would be at a $2 billion run rate. With the guidance that we have provided and the expectations ahead, I think that's a milestone that backs up, you know, the amount of visibility in our supply chain. You know, right now the goal is, as Michael said, $4 billion.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah, if the demand is there this year, then okay, we will do it.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah, we do it $2 billion, as we said a couple years ago.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

We continue to see the demand and we see the demand will be there. Okay, this is not a one a short-term things. Okay. If it's not happen that years, then it will happen the year after.

[William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Technology at Truist]

Guys, congrats again. Thanks for taking my questions.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Rick Schafer of Oppenheimer. Rick, your line is now open.

[Rick Schafer, Managing Director of Semiconductor Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Yeah, thanks. I'll echo all the congratulations. Another stellar quarter from you guys and outlook. If I could, my first question, I'm just kind of following up on the server breakout, and obviously a big ramp ahead for QSMod and cloud this year. I was curious, kind of below that line a little bit, if there's any updates you could give us on your 48 volts goal expectations this year or next. Within that, I'm curious, you know, sort of assume 48 volts virtually all AI accelerator for the next, you know, couple of years.

[Rick Schafer, Managing Director of Semiconductor Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer]

I'm curious when you see 48-volt sort of move into other areas, like CPU or some broader markets like auto or industrial, cause I'm curious if you've looked at sort of what that 48-volt SAM looks like for MPS, cause it seems like an awful big opportunity.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. 48 volts, okay, and 48 volts and really is actually starting, like, in the automotive and also the server and the AI, okay, these are CPUs and or the, for the 48 volts for the car, that's a different thing. The same technologies. We see these telecom areas; 48 volts can be a standard. Now the 48 volts and they comply with the 48 volts, okay, and we have solution there. There's a lot of area we can grow.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. I think that the 48-volt, not only are we seeing the ramp of its adoption more broadly, but competitively, I would offer that, we're very well positioned, with some of the new technologies that we've rolled out, and expect to roll out, during the course of the next 18 months. I think here again, we time our product releases pretty well with the inflection of this market opportunity.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Rick Schafer, Managing Director of Semiconductor Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thank you.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

As we're talking, that product, the modules is ramping.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

We provide whatever customer needs. We're at a chip level or module levels or even solution levels.

[Rick Schafer, Managing Director of Semiconductor Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Oh, thanks. Then maybe with my follow-up, just on 5G. I haven't asked a 5G question in a while, but I mean, you guys are engaged with the sort of the big three tier one OEMs, and I just was curious if you could give us an update on your expectations. I know you flagged 5G here from 1Q results. I'm curious what your expectations are for this year and you know, if there's any updates you could give us on sort of yeah, how content compares with what you're seeing in server or data center.

[Rick Schafer, Managing Director of Semiconductor Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Sort of how that ramp looks and maybe if you could talk about the, you know, how you quantify that opportunity in macro base station. Thanks.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Sure. In the 5G is a relatively new market segment for us. It's not like we can draw from our prior experience, we calibrate it up or down. We're sort of living a little hand-to-mouth on what the demand looks like and how fast we're shipping. We don't have a real good predictive model. What we talked to you about in the past has been that, again, we believe on a broad base, not only with, as you referred to the top three, but with a number of partners, related to 5G infrastructure, we're providing content.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

While it's easy to look at the base station as a means of calculating out what the SAM is available to us, I think that we're also in fiber optic in the data center support for 5G as well as in the transceiver on the base station. Again, I think as we've pointed out, a lot of the initial technology that we're putting in is tending to be lower end and not necessarily specialized or adapted to 5G specifically, so we don't have the same level of visibility on how it's being deployed. We've used this strategy in the past, think of the data center.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

We come in with lower dollar value content, build the relationships, and then we're able to go to higher value content.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

No, let me say that. Let's do that. We do have a custom design for each of the areas that Bernie just said.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

From fiber optics to all the signal chains all the way to transceivers. We do have a custom design. Based on our standard product modules, and these are the products. It's not really a low-end that can be in the. These are products that can be used for any other telecom. We provide a building block. We provide some power solutions for each of these blocks, each of these category. We do see a lot of activity now, and the revenues is ramping up.

[Rick Schafer, Managing Director of Semiconductor Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Got it. Congrats. Thanks, guys.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Chris Caso of Raymond James. Chris, your line is now open.

[Chris Caso, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at Raymond James]

Yes. Thank you, and good evening. I guess a question about the profile of revenue growth as we go through the year. Thus far, you know, so over the past several quarters, your revenue growth has been pretty broadly based, seeing growth in most segments. I know we've been speaking about, and we've been anticipating for a while, the server ramp as we get to the end of the year. You know, as we look through revenue the next kind of two, three, four quarters, do you expect that revenue growth to continue to be broadly based, or do you think that it's going to be concentrated in any particular segments?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

The strategy is we fire as many cylinders as we can. Okay, whatever grows, we grow. Okay, I think that's the strength about the diversifications. In the next few quarters, we see the demand even for 2023 and 2024, and these are pretty much similar. Okay. We don't see that much of a difference. One thing we see, okay, our customers demand more higher value product, which means they can easily adopt and ease of use and a much higher efficiency product and an energy conversion efficiency product. These are much better for us.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Instead of our customers do a lot of development work, we do a lot of development work. We develop the solution for our customers. That means a higher dollar content. That's really the only difference we see.

[Chris Caso, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at Raymond James]

Got it. Thank you. My follow-up question is about the impact of some of the China lockdowns and not from your production side, but rather from your customer side. What we heard from some others, or at least one other, is that, you know, part of the challenges in China right now are your customers having facilities that are closed or that freight forwarders are simply unwilling to accept product because of some of the logistics challenges that are going on right now. Is that something you're facing as well? And is there any impact on your revenue right now, which, you know, might mean, you know, if some of those issues get solved that some of that, you know, goes into the second half of the year?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Absolutely it hit us. Don't get me wrong, even though we grow this much, if we're not that problem, so like we ship a whole lot more in, but we just have, we anticipated a little better, like, I mean, so we can still roll above our models. Okay. I mean, that's not much above our models. I mean, or the quote unquote is above our models.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yes.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Even a year, two years. On the other hand, other than our logistics and production limitations, our customers, they have a mix too. Clearly you see the auto business. I mean, we have less of a problem shipping product than their other suppliers. You can speculate because it limited their purchasing of our product and because they're missing other parts.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

I think that we continue to be very resilient under a number of environmental circumstances. Part of that is the planning that we've set in motion, you know, three, four years ago. Some of it is how diversified our model is, and some of it is how adaptive we can be in the moment. We did acknowledge an impact, our customer supply chain affecting us. I wouldn't say that that is a pronounced element and we're continuing to monitor it.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Tore Svanberg of Stifel Nicolaus. Tore, your line is now open.

[Tore Svanberg, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

Yes, thank you, and congratulations on another record quarter. Quite stunning. First question is on long-term growth. You grew more than 40% last year. It looks like you're on track to growing another 40% this year at least. Michael, in the past you've said, you know, there's no reason why you can't accelerate growth even though you have higher revenues.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

You remember that one. That's good.

[Tore Svanberg, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

I'm just, you know, trying to, you know, understand what you think about long-term growth at this point. Is 40% the right number? I know you're probably not gonna commit to a number, but yeah, anything you can add on that'd be great.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. Okay. As we said, about a few minutes ago, I said that like our customers even demands more higher values products. Okay. I mean, solution kind of related products. Now, they want to unload their engineering effort to MPS. I see that opportunity is the opportunities for accelerated growth. Because, think about it, if it's MPS and we don't make anything and we're just only testing the final control quality control, and that can apply to anything else. Apply to models, apply to any other solutions. Okay. All, but it's all related to power, all related to what we know.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

From now on, you will see MPS. Okay, we provide the plug-and-play solution for all kind of robotics, for industrial automations, and for building controls, and those type of a product, which has a lot higher ASPs. We buy those components, or we specify those components, and we incorporate to our solutions. The unit price will be much higher. Now it's how fast we can put all these solutions together and turning to a meaningful revenue, and that I can predict. You have to acquire a lot of knowledges too. Now the same times MPS's semiconductor chip business keep growing.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

I don't see in the near term, in the next year or so, I don't see any slowdown, and it's actually accelerating. Too, the other models is at the very infancy. If you go three or four, five years from now, I think as we will be a real solution companies, and like a silicon, the semiconductor is only a part of it in the total content. I want to grow more. In other words, I see more than $10 billion companies, okay, I mean, $10-$15 billion company, and there is no reason why not?

[Tore Svanberg, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

That's great perspective. Thank you for that, Michael. As my follow-up, I wasn't aware you had a lot of traction in the SatCom market. Was just hoping you could add a little bit more color there. What types of applications, you know, what are some of the strengths the company have today in that market, and are you continuing to introduce new products? Because that's to me, it's obviously a very high margin business, right? But it's also a very difficult market to crack into.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yes. It's all committed satellite communications, not only in the satellite itself, the ground station. There's a huge amount and there's a new standards and there's a lot of new activities and they're very low. We decided to get into it a few years ago, and mostly it is a power modules and also we have relays to these in the satellite cells and these control the solar panels and also a lot of power blocks. I think the ground units is a ground unit is everywhere. Okay.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

These are from antenna to power, powering up the antenna to power the receivers and also all the way down to the user interface and we all benefited from that.

[Tore Svanberg, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

Excellent. Very good. Congratulations again.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Thank you.

[Tore Svanberg, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

Thanks.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Ross Seymore of Deutsche Bank. Ross, your line is now open.

[Ross Seymore, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

Hi. Can you guys hear me this time?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Ross, you're there.

[Ross Seymore, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

I've been here the whole time. I'm glad that we got it to work. I guess the first question is a longer term one, then I'll follow up with a shorter term one. Michael, you talked many times on tonight's call about moving up the value chain, adding more value. Customers wanna use Monolithic for more and more, and in the past, that's going from kind of the second or third tier folks in various markets up to the first tier. Really what I wanted to get at was, are you seeing evidence of moving up to higher and higher value customers? Does the fact that you didn't raise prices as much as your peers and that you had availability, is that getting you longer term design wins, higher value design wins? Anything you could do to quantify that dynamic?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

I don't know how to quantify that, okay, because we didn't increase the price, okay, for those first tier, the value, the strategic customers because these prices negotiated way before that. We had to honor them. We always said what we do is what we said what we do. Okay. We had to honor that. I think that's also is a part of MPS branding. That benefits from the long terms. For other high value customers, okay, or high value products, okay, it's a sporadic, okay. I mean, this is the very beginnings.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Okay, a lot of customers don't even know, "Oh, you offer this solutions, but you offer the entire solutions." They don't even know that. Okay. MPS is just starting to it. Okay. That actually relates to a few years ago, we said that we're going to do e-commerce. Okay. We were doing e-commerce plug and play programmable. Okay, all these things. We do sort of only for large customers. I said we have a satellite company, we have a EV company, so we have a. They want MPS to do a lot more.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Even the data centers demand all these. We provide the entire unit and they don't have to design. That's actually across the board we have. I've just named a few.

[Ross Seymore, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

Thanks

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Revenue is still small. We're starting.

[Ross Seymore, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

Great. Thanks for all that color, Michael. And for my follow-up and near term question, Bernie, this could either be both revenues and or the gross margin in your answer on this, and it's really about the mix. You've talked about the gross margin rising because of mix and new products being the driver of that. If I look at the industrial and automotive businesses the last couple quarters, they're great year-over-year, but they've been, you know, flat to a little bit down sequentially for the last six months or so. Is there anything going on in that business? Is it just lumpiness? Is it waiting for some design wins? And on the mix side of that equation for gross margin, I think most people believe those could be some of the more accretive areas.

[Ross Seymore, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

How is the mix such a positive for your gross margin if the two areas that are supposed to be the highest margins are actually slightly underperforming the others?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Makes sense. That's a.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

That's a good question.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

It's a good question. Okay. Yeah.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Let me reference what Michael said earlier. The power of our model is the diversification of the end markets. If you go back to the performance, the revenue performance that we demonstrated in industrial and automotive last year, they were leaders. They were our growth drivers. In the current year, it reflected what's the health of the two end markets. It really came down to it being the timing of shipments. We believe that as far as the design wins that are coming in, that we don't believe that we've over-shipped them to the extent that that's gonna cause us a problem. The orders on the book remain incredibly positive.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Again, it's more difference of quarter-over-quarter as opposed to anything fundamentally different about the market.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Also, you know, one of the questions is why the margins goes up if these two segments go sideways, okay? I mean, year over year we've grown, okay? I mean, if you look at it from Q3 last year to now

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Some of those segments are growth that contributes a lot of margins, okay? Gross margins. The other segments, okay, consumers, okay? I mean, we phased out, and I mean, this is not from the last year, so, okay, maybe the year. Yeah, beginning of the last year.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

When the capacity gets issues, like as you know, so we always phase out this lower margin. That's another part of it. The overall greenfield products will be driving the margins.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah. Just to add to Michael's point as far as phasing out lower margin business, you know, we're trying to rationalize our wafer starts to capture the largest opportunity, and as a result, some of the lower margin business that we would've used to have in our portfolio, we haven't emphasized that in our production planning, which is not there as a component of our business like it has been historically.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Hans Mosesmann, Managing Director at Rosenblatt Securities]

Thank you.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Hans Mosesmann, Managing Director at Rosenblatt Securities]

Mm.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our next question is from Hans Mosesmann from Rosenblatt. Hans, your line is now open.

[Hans Mosesmann, Managing Director at Rosenblatt Securities]

Hey, thanks for fitting me in, and congratulations like everybody else has mentioned. Good stuff. Hey, I have two questions. Hey, Michael, if we were to split 48 volts as an opportunity, so I'm thinking it, you know, getting 48 volts to the rack in your data center, and within the rack, getting that 48 volts to the board, and every board has to deal with, you know, the accelerators and there's power issues there. So, there's three touch points. If that's the way to look at it, what is the opportunity for each, and where would you be seeing the first incremental business for 48 volts for MPS?

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

I think the solution, yeah, you're right, okay? The question is, does depend on the applications. The 48 volts and the down to 12 volts or down to 5 volts or down to directly down to, well, 1.2 volts, that's the last part, okay, we don't do that. Our customers, like, I mean, and there's a few providers for that solution. It's not common. We play the market. I mean, down to 12, 48 converts to 12, and then convert to 5, 4 or 5 volts, okay? That's the market we played. I mean, it's open bill of materials. Everybody else can jump into it.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Our competitor provides similar solutions. We know this is the application. But which one? We don't know. It's hard to tell. All these are high current product, and you probably know more than I do. Okay, goes to 600 watts to 1,000 watts, and even some is a couple thousand watts. You see these are all MPS solutions. As the higher wattage you go, the volume gets smaller. In the coming years and those accelerator costs, okay, the population in the data centers, and that's where you see it.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

These are 48 volts that convert to a 12 volts. Then you have new solutions that we provide, so in that case you can convert to 5 volts, okay? The increase close to 1% of efficiency, which is a lot, okay?

[Hans Mosesmann, Managing Director at Rosenblatt Securities]

Thanks. That was very helpful, Michael. My follow-on just to end this, what is the view of the PC market for MPS? I think Intel mentioned that the low end of the PC market is weak, but the other parts are okay. What's your view to the degree that you have participation there? Thanks.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah, we obviously, we do well, and we do PCs, and the commercial PCs, and even the low end of business from where we see it. But for us it's very opportunistic because we have a product developed for server, and without much of an engineering effort, we can spin off that or do other product, do the product for commercial PC and for commercial notebooks. On the other end, we do battery management. We do actually panel power too, so yeah. We pretty much can offer the entire notebook solution other than the memories, other than the CPUs.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

That's it. It's very opportunistic. We currently see the demands are very strong.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah, just to add to that, Michael, a bit, like, Justin is we have a very good footprint in the commercial side. Because we have so many different product offerings, what we're seeing is being able to sell additional content into those same platforms.

[Michael Hsing, President and CEO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Yeah.

[Hans Mosesmann, Managing Director at Rosenblatt Securities]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager at Monolithic Power Systems]

If there are any follow-up questions, please click the raise hand button. As there are no further questions, I would now like to turn the webinar back over to Bernie.

[Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO at Monolithic Power Systems]

Great. Thanks, Gen. You know, I'd like to thank you all for joining us for the Q1 2022 Earnings Webinar. I look forward to talking to you again during our second quarter conference call, which will likely be in July. Thank you and have a nice day.

Participants

Executives

• Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO
• Genevieve Cunningham, Marketing Communications Manager
• Michael Hsing, President and CEO

Analysts

• Alessandra Vecchi, Senior Publishing Analyst Covering SMID Semiconductors at William Blair
• Chris Caso, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at Raymond James
• Hans Mosesmann, Managing Director at Rosenblatt Securities
• Matthew Ramsay, Managing Director and Senior Semiconductor Analyst at TD Cowen
• Quinn Bolton, Managing Director and Equity Research at Needham
• Rick Schafer, Managing Director of Semiconductor Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer
• Ross Seymore, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank
• Tore Svanberg, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus
• William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Technology at Truist