Micron Technology Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
June 29, 2022

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Micron Technologies Fiscal Third Quarter 2022 Financial Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised that today's conference may be recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Fahan Ahmad, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and welcome to Micron Technology's fiscal 3rd quarter 2022 financial conference call. On the call with me today are Sanjay Mehrotra, our President and CEO and Mark Murphy, our CFO. Today's call is being webcast from our Investor Relations site at investors. Micron.com, including audio and slides. In addition, the press release detailing our quarterly results has been posted on the website along with the prepared remarks for this call.

Speaker 1

Today's discussion of financial results is presented on a non GAAP financial basis unless otherwise specified. A reconciliation of GAAP to non GAAP financial measures may be found on our website. We encourage you to visit Our website at micron.com throughout the quarter for the most current information on the company, including information in the financial conferences that we will be attending. You can also follow us on Twitter MicronTech. As a reminder, the matters we are discussing today include forward looking Statements regarding market demand and supply, our expected results and other matters.

Speaker 1

These forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made today. We refer you to the documents we filed with the SEC, specifically our most recent Form 10 ks and 10 Q for a discussion of the risks that may affect our future results. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. We are under no duty to update any of the forward looking statements to conform these statements to actual results. I'll now turn the call over to Sanjay.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Farhan. Good afternoon, everyone. Micron delivered record quarterly revenue with strong profitability and free cash flow, enabled by our team's excellent execution and our industry leading technology and product portfolio. Micron achieved revenue records in the auto, industrial and networking markets and in SSDs for both data center and client. Our NAND business delivered record quarterly revenue and our embedded business unit and storage business unit NAND revenues also hit all time highs.

Speaker 2

Our 1 alpha DRAM and 176 layer NAND ramps are several quarters ahead of the industry and progressing well as we continue to qualify new products that use these nodes. The Micron team delivered these excellent results despite supply chain challenges and COVID-nineteen control measures in China, which impacted our business on both the demand side and the supply side. There are consumer demand and inventory related headwinds impacting the industry and consequently our fiscal Q4 outlook. However, we remain confident about the secular demand for memory and storage, the attractiveness of our market opportunity, Micron's excellent competitive position and strong execution capabilities and our cross cycle financial model. Micron is leading the industry in both DRAM and NAND technology, and we are also well poised to continue this lead into calendar 2023.

Speaker 2

In DRAM, our 1 Alpha node ramp is several quarters ahead of the industry. And in fiscal Q3, 1 Alpha represented the largest DRAM node in our shipment mix. Our newest node, 1 Beta, is on track to ramp in manufacturing by the end of calendar 2022. In NAND, Our industry leading 176 layer node continues to grow in mix of sales, having previously reached the majority of our NAND bit shipments in fiscal Q2. This technology node is contributing to our competitive cost structure across our product portfolio.

Speaker 2

And in FQ3, we achieved several important 176 layer product qualifications. We are also making excellent progress on our 232 layer node and expect to ramp production by the end of calendar 2022. Across the industry, there are cost challenges stemming from supply chain and inflationary pressures. However, we continue to expect our cost reductions to outpace those of the industry this year, driven by excellent productivity improvements in our fabs and the well executed ramp of our world class 1 Alpha DRAM and 176 layered NAND nodes. Despite COVID-nineteen control measures in China that created challenges for the global electronic supply chain, Micron's Strong execution enables record assembly output in fiscal Q3, supporting record quarterly revenue.

Speaker 2

However, these COVID-nineteen control measures in China impacted our outsourced assembly and test subcontractors and led to some impact to fiscal Q3 results. Now turning to our end markets. AI, ongoing cloud adoption, EVs and the ubiquitous connectivity offered by 5 gs are strong secular demand drivers, enabling the memory and storage industry to outpace the broader semiconductor industry. Micron's product portfolio has become significantly stronger and we have established product momentum in several attractive growth markets. We are also driving a portfolio mix shift toward higher growth in more stable markets.

Speaker 2

Fiscal 20 21's 55 to 45 revenue split in favor of the more mature mobile, PC and consumer markets is expected to shift by fiscal 2025 to a 38 to 62 split in favor of the higher growth data center, auto, industrial, networking and graphics markets. Several of these end markets also exhibit more stable profitability. Our fiscal Q3 new product launches and customer qualifications reflect Solid execution toward this portfolio transformation. Data center is the largest market for memory and storage today and the rapid growth of AI and memory intensive workloads ensures that it will sustain strong growth through the end of the decade. Corporations around the world are investing in digitization and extracting more value from data, And this approach remains one of the primary ways of improving efficiency and driving competitive advantage.

Speaker 2

Data center fiscal Q3 revenue grew by double digit percentage sequentially and well over 50% year over year. Data center end demand is expected to remain strong in the second half of calendar twenty twenty two, driven by robust cloud CapEx growth. Despite the strong end demand, we are seeing some enterprise OEM customers wanting to pare back their memory and storage inventory due to non memory component shortages and macroeconomic concerns. In fiscal Q3, We achieved several product and customer milestones. We began volume shipments of HBM2E, one of the fastest growing product categories driven by the growth in AI and machine learning workloads.

Speaker 2

Micron continues to lead in DDR5. However, delays in the rollout of new server CPU platforms have slowed the industry DDR5 ramp versus prior expectations. In data center SSDs, We more than doubled revenue year over year and achieved a new revenue record in the fiscal Q3. We are excited by the strong reception of our industry leading 176 layer data center NVMe SSDs, which are already in volume production. And in fiscal Q3, we completed qualifications with 3 OEMs.

Speaker 2

We recently launched the world's first 176 layer data center SATA SSD, which will help sustain our industry leadership in this product category. In fiscal Q3, we achieved client revenue growth in the mid teens percent range sequentially, driven by DRAM shipments and shared gains in client SSD. A number of factors have impacted consumer PC demand in various geographies. As a consequence, our forecast for calendar 2022 PC unit sales is now expected to decline by nearly 10% year over year from the very strong Unit sales in calendar 2021. This compares to an industry and customer forecast of roughly flat calendar 2022 PC unit sales at the start of this calendar year.

Speaker 2

We expect PC per unit memory and storage content growth trends to remain healthy in calendar 2022, Driven by a mixed shift toward enterprise PCs and the increasing content in new architectures such as Apple's M1 Ultra platform, which features up to 128 gigabyte of DRAM. Micron has a strong product portfolio and is well positioned in this market. We are leading the DDR5 transition and expect our DDR5 revenue to continue to grow as multiple client customers launch next generation notebooks. Increased availability of non memory bill of materials will also improve our ability to ship DDR5 based modules. In addition, we continue to lead the industry in client QLC SSD technology and expect QLC to increase as a percentage of 176 layer bit output in fiscal Q4 and beyond.

Speaker 2

In fiscal Q3, Graphics revenue grew at a strong double digit percentage rate sequentially and year over year, driven by the strength of Micron's products and customer relationships. Micron continues to be the industry performance leader in graphics. We announced volume shipments of our new 1z 16 gigabit GDDR6X in fiscal Q3, which features twice the capacity and up to 15% higher performance than the previous 1Y generation. The 24 gigabit per second peak bandwidth of GDDR6X is made possible by Micron's groundbreaking PAM4 Signal Transmission Technology. No other memory vendor offers this capability or level of performance.

Speaker 2

We also began volume shipments of our newest 1z 16 gigabit GDDR6 product to our largest graphics customers. Fiscal Q3 mobile revenue declined slightly year over year, but grew quarter over quarter due to strong customer partnerships and product execution. Smartphone unit sales expectations have declined meaningfully for calendar 2022. We are now projecting smartphone unit volume to decline by mid single digits percent range year over year in calendar 2022, well below the industry and customer expectation earlier in the year of mid single digit percentage growth. 5 gs unit sales are expected to grow and reach approximately 50% penetration of the smartphone unit TAM this year.

Speaker 2

The growth of 5 gs units will also drive higher DRAM and NAND content. We continue to deliver key mobile Customer qualifications and strong mobile product ramps on our leading nodes. In fiscal Q3, We expanded our 1 Alpha LPD ramp leadership with industry's first ramp of 1 Alpha LPDDR5. In addition, 176 layer NAND made up over 90% of our mobile NAND bit shipments. Micron is a market share and quality leader in the fast growing auto and industrial end markets and in fiscal Q3, We achieved record revenue in both.

Speaker 2

These markets also exhibit higher stability in their gross margin profile through the cycle. Auto growth has been driven by robust demand that remains constrained by auto unit production. We see robust auto content growth as OEMs adopt significant architectural changes to support ADAS, Infotainment and Electric Vehicles. In fiscal Q3, there were announcements of several new EVs featuring content rich ADAS, including the Ford F-one hundred and fifty Lightning, Mercedes EQS SUV and EQE Sedan and BMW iX1. We expect the auto market to have a strong long term bit growth CAGR in DRAM and NAND that is roughly twice The CAGR of overall DRAM and NAND markets and consequently our strength in this market will become increasingly important.

Speaker 2

Industrial IoT achieved record revenue in fiscal Q3, demonstrating broad based growth with various end market applications. We continue to see tailwinds from secular growth drivers as industrial customers Invest in increasing factory automation and digitization. Turning to the market outlook. Our expectations for calendar 2022 industry bid demand growth have moderated since our last earnings call. Near the end of fiscal Q3, we saw a significant reduction in near term industry bid demand, primarily attributable to end demand weakness in consumer markets, including PC and smartphone.

Speaker 2

These consumer markets have been impacted by the weakness in consumer spending in China, the Russia Ukraine war and rising inflation around the world. COVID-nineteen control measures in China have exacerbated Supply chain challenges for some customers and the macroeconomic environment is also creating some caution amongst certain customers. Several customers, primarily in PC and smartphone, are adjusting their inventories, and we expect these adjustments to take place mostly in the second half of calendar twenty twenty two. While end demand in the mobile, PC and consumer markets has weakened, Cloud, networking, automotive and industrial markets are showing resilience. Due to weaker demand in the second half of calendar twenty twenty two, we now expect year over year calendar 2022 industry bit demand growth to be below the long term CAGRs of mid to high teens percentage for DRAM and high 20s percentage for NAND.

Speaker 2

Despite the near term weakness, secular demand trends remain strong and our view of long term DRAM and NAND bit We are taking immediate action to reduce our supply growth trajectory. To protect profitability, we will maintain pricing discipline, Manage capacity utilization and use inventory as a buffer to navigate through this period of demand weakness. Additionally, we are planning for the reduced level of bit supply growth in fiscal 2023 and will use inventory to supply part of the market demand next year. This approach will enable us to reduce wafer fab equipment CapEx for fiscal year 2023 versus our prior plans, And we now expect our fiscal 2023 wafer fab equipment CapEx to decline year over year. Overall, industry supply is also being impacted.

Speaker 2

Manufacturing equipment shipment delays, Challenges for some in the industry in ramping new nodes of technology and DRAM supply discipline evident in the industry are all expected to limit supply growth over the next few quarters. These supply reductions will help offset some impact of the weaker demand. I will now turn it over to Mark Murphy, Micron's Chief Financial Officer.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Sanjay. Micron delivered strong results in fiscal Q3, marked by record quarterly revenue and $1,300,000,000 of free Cash flow. Total fiscal Q3 revenue was $8,600,000,000 up 11% Fiscal Q3 DRAM revenue was $6,300,000,000 representing 73% of total revenue. DRAM revenue increased 10% sequentially and was up 15% year over year. Sequentially, bit shipments increased by slightly over 10%, while ASPs declined slightly.

Speaker 3

Fiscal Q3 NAND revenue was $2,300,000,000 representing 26% of Micron's total revenue. NAND revenue increased 17% sequentially and was up 26% year over year. Sequential bit shipments increased in the high teens percent and ASPs declined slightly. Now turning to our fiscal Q3 revenue trends by business unit. Revenue for the compute and networking business unit was $3,900,000,000 up 13% sequentially and 18% year over year.

Speaker 3

Data center graphics and networking contributed to both year over year and sequential growth. Revenue for the mobile business unit was approximately $2,000,000,000 up 5% sequentially and down 2% year over year. Strong execution and product momentum allowed MBU to deliver sequential growth in a challenging smartphone market demand environment. Revenue for the storage business unit was $1,300,000,000 up 15% Finally, we achieved record revenue for the embedded business unit at $1,400,000,000 Up 12% sequentially and up 30% year over year. Both automotive and industrial revenues set records in the quarter.

Speaker 3

The consolidated gross margin for fiscal Q3 was 47.4%, down approximately 40 basis points sequentially. An increasing mix of NAND contributed to the decline. Operating expenses in fiscal Q3 were approximately $950,000,000 below the low end of the guidance range and down approximately $20,000,000 sequentially. OpEx benefited from the timing of our technology and product qualifications and from lower variable compensation. Although we are taking actions to reduce OpEx in light of current market conditions, We expect OpEx to increase sequentially due to the timing of technology and product qualifications.

Speaker 3

Fiscal Q3 operating income was $3,100,000,000 resulting in an operating margin of 36.4%, up approximately 110 basis points sequentially and up 450 basis points from the prior year. Fiscal Q3 adjusted EBITDA was approximately $5,000,000,000 resulting in an EBITDA margin of 57 point 4%, down approximately 40 basis points sequentially and up over 400 basis points versus the prior year. Non GAAP earnings per share in fiscal Q3 were $2.59 up from $2.14 in fiscal Q2 and up from $1.88 in the year ago quarter. Turning to cash flows and capital spending, We generated $3,800,000,000 in cash from operations in fiscal Q3, representing 44% of revenue. Capital expenditures were $2,500,000,000 during the quarter.

Speaker 3

We expect fiscal 2022 CapEx to be approximately $12,000,000,000 Our free cash flow for fiscal Q3 was $1,300,000,000 During the quarter, we completed share This is of $981,000,000 or approximately 13,800,000 shares. Including our dividend payment, We returned $1,100,000,000 to shareholders in fiscal Q3. Since the share repurchase program's inception In fiscal 2019 through the end of fiscal Q3, we have deployed $5,700,000,000 As we discussed at Investor Day, we are committed to returning to shareholders all of the free cash flow generated over the cycle through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. Share repurchases will be both programmatic and opportunistic, And we expect to purchase more as the stock trades at bigger discount to intrinsic value. On dividends, Our Board of Directors approved a quarterly dividend of $0.115 per share, a 15% increase over the prior dividend, to be paid on July 26 to shareholders of record on July 11.

Speaker 3

Our ending fiscal Q3 inventory was $5,600,000,000 and average days of inventory for the quarter We're down to 109 days from 113 days last quarter. We ended the quarter with $12,000,000,000 of cash and investments and $14,500,000,000 of total liquidity. Our fiscal Q3 total debt was $7,000,000,000 Now turning to our outlook for the fiscal 4th quarter. Long term demand trends remain constructive. However, select market weakness and macroeconomic uncertainty are impacting our near term outlook and visibility.

Speaker 3

Currently, we do project sequential bit Shipments to be down for both DRAM and NAND in fiscal Q4. We intend to maintain pricing discipline and walk away from business which doesn't meet our pricing objectives. While we are taking proactive steps to control OpEx and CapEx, we expect the impact of these actions to be limited in fiscal Q4 and it become more material in fiscal year 2023. With all these factors in mind, Our non GAAP guidance for the fiscal Q4 is as follows. We expect revenue to be $7,200,000,000 plus or minus $400,000,000 gross margin to be in the range of 42.5 percent, plus or minus 150 basis points and operating expenses to be approximately $1,050,000,000 plus or minus 25,000,000 We expect our non GAAP tax rate to be approximately 9% for fiscal Q4.

Speaker 3

Based on a share count of approximately 1,130,000,000 fully diluted shares, we expect EPS to be 1.63 We remain on track to deliver record revenue and In closing, we delivered strong results in our fiscal Q3, But near term headwinds are impacting our fiscal Q4 outlook. Beyond the near term, We project secular growth drivers such as data center, automotive and other areas to support robust DRAM and NAND growth And strong cross cycle financial performance by Micron. At our Investor Day event last month, We laid out a cross cycle financial model for the company that reflects the key attributes of our business: A strong revenue growth CAGR of high single digits, robust cross cycle operating margins of approximately 30% and healthy free cash flow margins that exceed 10% of revenues. Given our long term financial outlook and the strength of our balance sheet, we see the current share price as very attractive and at these levels intend to repurchase shares more aggressively in fiscal Q4. I will now turn it back to Sanjay.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Mark. The memory and storage TAM is expected to grow to $330,000,000,000 by 2,030 and become an increasing portion of the semiconductor market. The near term market environment notwithstanding, We are executing extremely well on all aspects of the business that are within our control. Micron's continuing technology, product manufacturing leadership puts us in an excellent position to capitalize on the long term opportunity and to extend the frontiers of what is possible with memory and storage. We will continue to exercise supply discipline and take appropriate actions to navigate through the near term headwinds, and we remain focused on creating value for shareholders and generating healthy free cash flow cross cycle.

Speaker 2

Thanks for joining us today. We will now open for questions.

Operator

Our first question comes from the line of Harlan Sur of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. On the data center business, as you guys mentioned, I mean, enterprise CIOs are concerned on the macro outlook and pulling back on their spending budgets. Cloud remains strong, but within that, we've heard that Continued there's continued strength from the U. S.

Speaker 4

Cloud service providers, but a pullback in spending from the China cloud customers, are you guys seeing these dynamics within your cloud segment? And then on the supply side, again within your cloud business, Can you discuss the level of inventories in the channel and at customers that feed into the cloud segment? Because we're hearing that kind of similar to Enterprise inventories in the cloud channels are also pretty elevated, but wanted to get your views.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Hardin, for the question. And before I answer the question, I just wanted to note here that we have Sumit Sadana, Our Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer here as well. As you may recall, Sumit was with us in the last earnings And in the given environment, I thought it would be good to have him here to add any color to the market environment related specific questions. So with respect to the question you asked regarding the enterprise server OEM side of the business, There, yes, as we noted that we have seen some inventory adjustment, particularly given their concerns on the macro environment as well as Certain supply chain shortages that they may be experiencing. However, on the enterprise server VM side, the end market demand Continues to be healthy as well.

Speaker 2

And same thing on the cloud side as well that the end market demand for cloud is healthy. Cloud demand to us is relatively healthy as well. Of course, cloud also carries elevated levels Inventory and of course, the cloud investments in CapEx continue to be at a strong clip in their infrastructure and that bodes well for memory and storage. And I think what's important is that the overall trend of digitization and use of data To help drive greater productivity and efficiency in businesses, particularly in the backdrop that the world is facing today with the macroeconomic uncertainties, It's helpful in driving greater technology adoption across industries, and that's where memory and storage Laid out well as well. And specifically with respect to China and U.

Speaker 2

S, of course, in China, as we have pointed out earlier, we have seen Overall weakness and certainly weakness on the consumer demand side from China as well as from other parts of the But we are not really breaking it down between China and U. S. At this point. But again, The overall cloud trends continue to be healthy in terms of the end demand.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

And Sumit, do you want to add any comment on channel customers in terms of inventory?

Speaker 5

Yes. I mean, I think the inventory level, as Sanjay said, is higher On the cloud customer side and generally on the data center side compared to where it was pre COVID, the channel business On the cloud side, is relatively in a better place compared to The consumer business challenges that Sanjay highlighted, but of course, different customers have Different strategies on how they manage their particular inventory and the smaller customers in the channel that Focus on data center products have had more challenges getting their hands on some of these Products that are in shortage like NIC cards to complete server builds and the smaller customers are getting more impacted there than of the bigger customers.

Speaker 2

And Hardin, I'll tell you that we work very closely with our customers. I mean, our Team here, Sumit, myself, I mean, we really engage very closely with our customers across partners here in China as well as here in the U. S. And worldwide. So of course, we are keeping close tabs on how the business environment is evolving.

Speaker 4

Great insights. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from C. J. Muse of Evercore. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I guess first question, can you speak to the magnitude of the correction for both DRAM and NAND, how you see that playing out? I'm assuming here It's a much larger impact on the DRAM side for you and should be thinking maybe bits down kind of in the low teens. Is that the right way to think about it?

Speaker 2

So certainly, on the in terms of inventory adjustments that are Primarily happening in the smartphone and the PC market, of course, those inventory adjustments are happening in NAND as well as in DRAM. And clearly, as we have said, that in terms of overall demand Projection for this year, we definitely see it below the for DRAM, below the guidance we had provided Earlier as well as the longer term CAGR for DRAM's mid teens to High teens, so we see that below that trajectory. And in terms of NAND, same thing that earlier we have said that the CAGR is High 20s, and we see that in calendar year 'twenty two coming in below that. Again, adjustments are happening with respect to inventory In both in smartphone and PC market. And just keep in mind that compared to earlier in the year estimation for PC growth, We now are projecting that PC year over year in calendar year 'twenty two will be down nearly 10%.

Speaker 2

Similarly, smartphone at the start of the year was expected to grow in mid single digits in terms of total unit sales worldwide Year over year. And now, one is looking at a decline of mid single digits, so a swing of 10% in smartphones as well. You were to translate it into units, it amounts to like 130,000,000 units reduction versus expectation earlier in the year for smartphone. And similarly for PC, let's say $30,000,000 kind of deduction in terms of total units versus the projections earlier in So and of course, PC and smartphone combined represent half of the memory and storage Worldwide demand in terms of this, right? So with this adjustment primarily happening in the second half of this year in these two markets, Clearly, that is resulting in year over year change versus prior expectations in DRAM as well as NAND and demand growth.

Speaker 6

Very helpful. As a follow-up, Mark, you talked about WFE trending lower in fiscal 23, can you give an idea of the magnitude there? And then how should we think about overall CapEx trending into fiscal 2023? Thanks so much.

Speaker 3

Yes. CJ, as mentioned on the prepared remarks, we expect to end fiscal 2022 at around $12,000,000,000 so On total CapEx, so that would be an uptick in Q4, and that's consistent with previous statements. Now with bit supply growth assumptions coming off versus previous group, the view we're actively working to bring spend down. And as you say, we're confident that as we sit here today, WFE spend will be down in fiscal 'twenty three. We're also evaluating construction and other large areas of spend.

Speaker 3

Yes, we're looking to reduce utilization on some older nodes To maintain supply and drive CapEx reuse and shift production to more cost effective nodes, Doing a number of things and the market's dynamic, so this is real time. Yes, I'm not going to size The reduction next year just at this point because it's still moving, but at this point, we're confident that WFE Will decline year over year.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Krish Sankar of Cowen and Company. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Yes. Hi. Thanks a lot for taking my question. I have 2 quick ones. First one, Sanjay or Samit.

Speaker 7

I kind of had a little bit of asking the cloud question. As you mentioned, mobile and PCS slowed, But it seems like data center is the next shoe to drop, but yet you seem optimistic about data center to remain strong in second half twenty twenty two, You also said cloud inventory is high. So it seems like if consumer spending slows, which it is, data center CapEx is a risk.

Speaker 8

So I'd love to hear

Speaker 2

your thoughts, why you

Speaker 7

think overall the U. S. Cloud trends won drop in second half of this year? And then a quick follow-up question for maybe Mark On the impact of the China Shanghai COVID-nineteen lockdown, is there a way to quantify what it was in the May quarter and what it means to second half output for Micron? Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

So earlier I provided some color regarding our view on cloud. I think I will have Sumit just add some further color on that. And Sumit, maybe you can just take the China question as well.

Speaker 5

Yes, sure. So Chris, very quick on the cloud discussion. As Sanjay mentioned, the CapEx trends for our customers in the cloud space continue to be Pretty strong and the end demand for cloud services and the growth in those cloud services continues to be robust. And so of course, like you also pointed out, I mean, the inventory levels are higher Compared to where they were pre COVID, now it remains to be seen how the macroeconomic environment is going to caused the cloud spending trends to modulate over time. But if anything, we think that the Cloud spending trends are going to be pretty secular, pretty strong.

Speaker 5

Even if there is some kind of an impact, It will come back strongly as things stabilize. And even companies that do Focus on tightening their belt in this macroeconomic environment. We'll continue to look for ways to become more efficient, become more profitable, Improve their competitive positioning and that means extracting more value from data digitization trends to continue. So those kind of things we feel are going to be well sustained through the environment that may happen. But of course, A lot depends on how the macroeconomic environment evolves and that's why we are staying very close with customers.

Speaker 5

Switching to your China question, China has been a pretty significant impact to our fq4 trajectory. This time last quarter when we were contemplating our fq4 trajectory compared to that to our latest guidance that we have provided, our View for China revenue has come down by approximately 30% And that reduction in the China revenue has caused Roughly a 10% reduction in our consolidated company wide revenue. And so that's the impact to the Q4. It's pretty substantial. And the China impact is largely driven by, of course, smartphone weakness, PC weakness, the general consumer environment there has Been weak due to the COVID shutdowns and that has percolated to different parts of the economy.

Speaker 5

So the economic environment is weak. Now we do Feel like given the weakness in that economy, as you know, China does tend to Provide stimulus to improve the financial and economic conditions, and we are hopeful that, that kind of stimulus And improvement in the economy will be forthcoming in the quarters ahead. The timing of that and how it plays out with further

Speaker 8

Thank

Operator

you. Our next question comes from Timothy Arcuri of UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thanks a lot. I guess I had two questions. The first one is for you, Mark. The buyback this Quarter was great, but I guess and you didn't say that you're going to buy back more in August, but I guess I had a bigger picture question around Sort of you have an opportunity now with the stock where it is, you have leadership in terms of technology. Where would you be willing to take cash balance To take advantage of this price weakness, I mean, is there a sort of a minimum cash balance that we can think of where you could sort of

Speaker 3

Yes. Tim, I'm not going to comment on definitively about our rate and pace. Yes. As you point out, the balance sheet is stronger than ever. And I think what's most important there is we're in a great position to sustain Long term investments as the market is a bit softer here.

Speaker 3

Yes, we've got $14,500,000,000 of liquidity, which you point out $12,000,000,000 of that's in cash. And that is above the liquidity target We had said of about 35 percent. We're 10 points over that. Leverage is low, 0.4% on gross, And we're in a net cash position. So, no near term maturities, average debt maturity out 2,031.

Speaker 4

So we're

Speaker 3

in great shape. Yes, I think we want to maintain a balance sheet to be able to Focus on the long term of the business. As you point out, we did return historically high levels To shareholders in Q3, at the share price levels, we project opportunistic repurchase to increase. And then from there, we're just focused on free cash flow growth, Returning excess cash to shareholders, and importantly, maintaining investment grade rating. So I'd say we have ample liquidity now to repurchase at a higher rate This quarter.

Speaker 8

Cool. Thanks for that. And I guess second question also Mark for you. What does the guidance Assume for your inventories in August and sort of how do you think about sort of the balance between holding some inventory If you believe that data center will stay strong, sort of how should we think about inventory in August and sort of your bigger picture strategy around keeping some inventory on the bet that cloud does remain strong?

Speaker 3

It's a good question, Tim, and you heard Sanjay talk about this briefly in his prepared remarks. Our strategy is to manage supply Through inventory as a buffer, we did talk about reducing bit supply growth assumptions a bit. We are Starting this sort of softer period in a pretty good place, we ended the Q3 at 5 point So, we do expect inventories to go up this quarter, And that will build in some flexibility as we work to optimize price on our products. I want to note it's cost effective inventory, much of it built on leading nodes and so it will be competitive for a long time. And then we'll also use this inventory build to revisit some CapEx decisions and defer CapEx, optimize the manufacturing And to C.

Speaker 3

J. Earlier question, it gives us more confidence that we can lower WFE spend next year. So in the we expect it to go up a couple of weeks days Yes, in the Q4, from there, we'll have to see how the market develops and which way it moves. We are we do have more complex wafer processing And more complex module products that are sort of adding some pressure on the days, but we're also offsetting that with better cycle Lower stock levels and so forth. So I think the days that we would be uncomfortable with Is a number that we've talked about in the past around 150 days where we start to that's too high a level.

Speaker 3

So We would definitely go up in the Q4 and then we'll see where inventory levels go from there.

Speaker 8

Helpful. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vivek Arya of Bank of Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Thanks for taking my question. Sanjay, I'm curious, do you think this Q4 outlook is the bottom of the cycle? Or do you think the risks can extend into Q1 because you mentioned that the consumer headwinds could continue to play out during the second half of the calendar year And also because cloud inventory is at elevated levels. So I guess my specific question as much as I realize you don't guide out more than a quarter is, Do you think Q1 sales and margins are more likely to be flat, up or down sequentially?

Speaker 2

So clearly, we don't guide to Q1 here. But as I pointed out in the prepared remarks, that we expect These inventory adjustments to be working themselves out over the course of second half of the year. We have pointed out that the inventory adjustments primarily are taking place in PC and the smartphone market. And I'll just point out that from the past history as well that once inventory adjustments begin in a certain part of the segment, Then it takes couple of quarters for them to work out. And here, we, of course, have Macroeconomic uncertainties as well.

Speaker 2

It has been a rapidly changing and uncertain environment, and this

Speaker 5

is what we have to Keep

Speaker 2

in mind, when we look at when does normal see return in terms of demand. And that's why just like Mark pointed out Here in response to last question, we will be using inventory to address the demand next year. And we will continue to work closely with our customers to understand their overall demand environment. We think that sometime in fiscal 2023 is when in our fiscal 2023 is when demand will rebound, but more importantly, it's really about the supply demand balance. And with respect to supply demand balance, you can see that we are taking actions immediately in terms of curtailing our Supply growth for fiscal year 2023 by sharing the plans with you that we are bringing down our CapEx versus our estimations earlier.

Speaker 2

So that's an important step and of course, industry has shown that in DRAM that it has CapEx discipline as well, we believe our actions will also contribute toward Returning the industry health sooner. So I would expect that sometime in our fiscal year 'twenty three, our demand will rebound as well as Demand supply environment will restore to a healthy level. But again, I will point out that look, this is a highly uncertain, Rapidly changing environment. We are, of course, responding fast and in terms of any changes we see. So we are not pinpointing to any specific quarter at this time.

Speaker 2

And again, I think what's also important is that Micron execution continues to be really strong. I mean, whether you look from technology, product, manufacturing, Customer relationships and of course, our strong balance sheet, we are well poised to emerge stronger on the other side of this Downturn. So we are really executing well, working closely with our customers to understand the latest demand trends in various end market segments And adjusting our plans as necessary and as fast as we can and really positioning the company for overall Healthy growth in the long term. And again, the long term trends, as Sumit also pointed out earlier and I shared with you, the long term trends absolutely bode well for memory and storage.

Speaker 9

How much is cloud inventory above a normal level, dollars 100,000,000 $200,000,000 Any kind of rough estimation of how much of incremental headwind is that So we can take that into account. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Look, I mean, it really varies by customer to customer, right? So I mean, we can't exactly give you some of those details

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ambrish Srivastava of BMO, your line is open.

Speaker 10

Thank you very much. Sanjay, good to see the Financial and the CapEx discipline. With respect to supply growth and you're ramping down supply growth heading into fiscal For fiscal 2023, what's the right way to think about demand growth? And so within the supply meeting demand, how much do you think will be production growth Production supply versus coming from the inventory from the industry because I think the industry seems to be consistent in that, At least what we heard a week or 2 ago from one of your large competitors is also lowering CapEx. So that's the good part, but What how should we think about inventory on the balance sheet of the 3 participants adding to the production supply growth.

Speaker 10

And then I had a quick follow-up for Mark as well, please.

Speaker 2

So look, I mean, we are in the process of forming up our plants. And when we have our FQ4 earnings call in September, of course, we will share with you some more details Around calendar year 'twenty three, that will be more appropriate time for us to be talking about it as well as our fiscal year 'twenty three. But again, the important thing to note is that our inventory is highly cost effective. I mean, Micron is Leading the industry with our DRAM and NAND production nodes, right, we are several quarters ahead. So this is a highly cost effective Our manufacturing operations are running well.

Speaker 2

So we will be using this inventory in fiscal year 'twenty three and, of course, continue to Adjust our plans as necessary on the CapEx and front end wafer technology ramps, etcetera, to bring balance into demand and supply and which is what I pointed out earlier that Overall, the combination of our inventory as well as new production growth, that's how we position to bring that into balance to meet the demand sometime in fiscal 2023.

Speaker 10

Got it. And Mark, real quick one on the WIFI versus non WIFI. What's the percentage and I respect the fact that plans are still in flux, so you can give us a number for 23, but what's the number

Speaker 3

I'm sorry, Ambrish, I couldn't hear the question.

Speaker 10

Sorry, my question was, what's the wafer front end versus non wafer front end spend and the CapEx for this year?

Speaker 3

Okay. I got the mix of spend. I won't give an exact number because the mix varies From year to year and depends on product cycles, availability of fab space and facilities and other factors. Over half of CapEx generally is manufacturing WFE and then The other half is split between development CapEx and construction.

Speaker 10

So when you say you'll be you could take down Construction as well, that means construction as well as development or what's the right way to think about the kind of the playbook is what everybody is looking for If things continue

Speaker 3

to change Just to be specific, we're talking about WFE for Manufacturing and that's what I was addressing would go down year over year. We did not commit to going down year over year on construction Noor on Technology Development. I did say though that depending on how the market plays out here and inventory levels and Supply bit growth and so forth, we continue to look at our footprint. That's a continuous process to optimize the amount of spend. Got it.

Speaker 3

So again, just to make sure that's clear, WFE over half and then the rest is Construction, spend equipment spend for R and D and assembly and test.

Speaker 10

Got it. Thank you. And again, I apologize if I misinterpreted your comments. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Aaron Rakers of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Yes. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask you in this environment, these last couple of quarters and at the Analyst Day, you emphasized How much of your business you had kind of line of sight in terms of kind of the long term agreements that you've established. I'm curious as we've gone through this kind of correction or downturn, how would you characterize your on those long term commitments, have they changed at all? Have customers pushed back on taking the amount of Previously committed supply from you guys.

Speaker 11

How has that changed at all as we go through this kind of correction right now?

Speaker 2

That's a great question and I will have Sumit address it.

Speaker 5

Yes, happy to talk about that. So the long term agreements, Generally, we go out 4 quarters, talk about volume in each quarter. And as I have pointed out in the past, These are not meant to be take or pay agreements, but more meant for planning and shared assumptions and so on. We have had extensive discussions. We keep having ongoing dialogue with our customers about the environment.

Speaker 5

We obviously continue to press our customers to stick with the Agreements and the quarterly SKU, etcetera, as much as possible, but when there are such significant events that are happening, exogenous shocks sometimes to the environment and such unpredictable type of Situations that Sanjay was highlighting, fast changing environment that is causing impact to the end demand, especially given some of the consumer spending shifts that are happening in the world that are causing Reductions in purchasing of certain electronics products, PCs, smartphones, etcetera, then it is Not possible for our customers to purchase based on the LTA that were established when the assumptions around the industry were very different. And so, our goal then is to work with our customers to come up with the best approach and figure out how best to position ourselves in terms of the forward looking views of their purchasing patterns. And this is where I feel like The product momentum that we have had has played out really well. We just mentioned that our Data center SSD revenue doubled in the most recent quarter year on year. We have tremendous Product portfolio momentum across all of our products.

Speaker 5

We are shipping in volume HBM products. We have the world's fastest graphics DRAM product, First to market with low power DRAM and mobile, and really Strong capability in automotive, number 1 shared in auto, industrial and networking. So these all play to our strengths with our customers. In the areas where we do want to improve our portfolio position, improve our share because there are more stable segments in the market or there are more profitable portions of the Free profit pool, that's where we focus on and then our portfolio strength really helps enable that transition with customers to make Our own business more optimized and more profitable, more steady over time. So that's the engagement that we have with customers and we Use those LTAs to then drive those longer term goals that we have with

Speaker 8

customers. That's

Speaker 11

great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our time. That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Micron Technology Q3 2022
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