Q4 2023 Cambium Networks Corp Earnings Call

Participants

Simon Leopold; Analyst; Raymond James & Associates

George Notter; Analyst; Jefferies

John Roy; Analyst; Water Tower Research LLC

Tim Savageaux; Analyst; Northland Capital Markets

Presentation

Operator

good Afternoon. My name is [Michelle], and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cambium Networks fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions)
Thank you, Mr. Peter Schuman, Vice President Investor and Industry Analyst Relations. You may begin your conference.

Thank you, Michelle, and welcome, and thank you for joining us today for Cambium Networks' fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call and welcome to all those joining by webcast. Morgan Kurk, our President and CEO; and John Becerril, our interim CFO, are here for today's call. The financial results press release and CFO commentary referenced on this call are accessible on the Investor page of our website, and the press release has been submitted on a Form 8-K with the SEC.
A copy of today's prepared remarks will also be available on our Investor page at the conclusion of this call. As a reminder, today's remarks, including those made during Q&A will contain forward-looking statements about the Company's outlook and forecasted performance. These statements are based on current conditions, forecasts and assumptions.
Risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially except as required by law, Cambium Networks does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this presentation, whether as a result of new information, future developments or to conform these statements to actual results or make changes in Cambium's expectations or otherwise. It is Cambium Networks' policy. Not to reiterate our financial outlook.
We encourage listeners to review the full list of risk factors included in the Safe Harbor statement in today's financial results press release and our most recent SEC filings, including our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. We will also reference both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures and specifically note that all sequential and year-over-year comparisons reference non-GAAP numbers, except where otherwise noted, a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to GAAP is included in the appendix to today's financial results press release, which can be found on the Investor page of our website and in today's press release announcing our results.
Turning to the agenda, Morgan Kurk will provide the key operational highlights for the fourth quarter and full year 2023, and John Becerril will provide a recap of the financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2023 and will discuss our financial outlook for the first quarter and full year 2024. our prepared remarks will be followed by a Q&A session. I'd now like to turn the call over to Morgan.

Thank you, Peter. Summarizing the performance of Q4 '23. As mentioned in our preliminary Q4 23 results on January 18, while the Company shipped $51 million in product revenues during the quarter. This was offset in part by an $11 million reduction to revenues as the result of incentives provided to distributors during the fourth quarter of 2023 that provides aggressive enterprise product discounts to clear excess channel inventories.
The gross margin was also depressed during Q4 '23 due to the aforementioned incentives and higher inventory reserves. Operationally, our team executed to expectations during my first full quarter as CEO, including in the point-to-point PTP. business, which had strong growth and in point to multipoint PMP business in North America, thanks in part to increasing orders of six gigahertz products ahead of the FCC's formal approval, while revenues came in below our outlook and gross margins decreased during Q4 '23 as a result of increased incentives provided to enterprise distributors and higher inventory reserves. We maintained good cost controls and tightly manage our operating expenses.
As expected, our PTP revenues were strong, increasing 38% sequentially and improving 3% year over year as US federal spending for defense applications recovered. Our PMP revenues decreased 4% sequentially and were lower by 24% year over year. Channel inventories for PMP had been significantly reduced year over year, while waiting for the FCC's approval of 6 GHz spectrum now expected during the first half of CY '24.
The FCC's approval is anticipated to drive sales of Cambium's new 6 GHz EPMP 4600 and PMP 450 V product lines, both of which are available today during Q4 '23 the North America regions sequential growth for PMP and PTP was offset by a decrease in Amea as PMP revenues as a result of the large 28 GHz fixed 5G shipments that occurred during Q3 '23.
Our enterprise revenues decreased $8 million sequentially and decreased $37.5 million year over year due in part to the $11 million of channel inventory discounts. Orders for our enterprise business continued to experience headwinds in both North America and EMEA due to high channel inventories and competition enterprise revenues were negatively impacted by stock rotations of approximately $3 million.
We have seen a significant reduction in enterprise stock rotations as channel inventories decreased and expect this to continue to decrease throughout the year. Sales of Cambium's products out of the distribution channel as reported by Cambium's distributors were significantly higher for Q4 '23 than Cambium's reported revenues, and we saw a corresponding decline in channel inventories for enterprise products.
While the PMP channel inventories remained relatively stable, we are making good progress in reducing channel inventories. And in the aggregate, the inventory is approaching pre-pandemic levels. We will continue to be diligent about monitoring and controlling this as shorter lead times and increased cost of capital may drive different behaviors by distributors than in the past.
Looking at full year 2023 revenues of $220.2 million represent a decrease of 26% from 2022. The 2023 decline was predominantly driven by our enterprise products, which decreased 64% from the prior year and to a lesser extent, lower PMP revenues, which declined 17% from the prior year, partially offset by the growth in our PTP business, which had a record year, increasing 20% for the full year 2023.
Breaking the $80 million threshold for the first time in Cambium's history, largely due to the strength of our defense business. We continue to expect enterprise channel inventories to decrease in the first half of CY '24 as supply remains abundant and lead time short, but also expect incremental improvement in sales into the channel throughout the year.
We foresee modest growth for the PMP business driven by new product momentum in our 6 GHz products, continued adoption of our 60 GHz solutions and lumpy ordering of our 28 GHz solutions. We expect continuing strength in the defense portion of the PTP business in North America and abroad. And in enterprise, we expect recovery during the second half of CY '24 for now looking at some customer wins that are key to our future success.
In North America, we received sizable orders from NexLynk, a large service provider in the Midwest for the new PMP 4600 using 6 GHz spectrum. Next month, we'll use EPMP primarily to reach locations and low density rural areas to see of an excellent commented that the EPMP 6 GHz platform is an unmatched blend, a blend of performance and cost alone. Next links to be cost effectively offer gigabit broadband to their customers.
This purchase is testimony to our value strategy. Once the spectrum is approved by the FCC, we expect rapid deployment by many of our over 100 customers who are trialing the product. In Mexico, a wireless Internet service provider signal is offering Internet service subscription packages to customers within Walmart supermarkets. Cambium's PMP radios are bundled as part of the service offering. Customers purchasing the equipment through Walmart customers purchase the equipment through Walmart to contract the connectivity services. This is a disruptive model that departs from the usual go-to market of WISPs and shows industry maturation and Cambium's support of continued expansion.
Turning to upcoming product introductions, since our previous quarterly update, this spring, we will introduce our first fiber aggregation switch within their enterprise portfolio. The new switch features dual independent redundant power supplies, non-blocking Level two and Level three switching line rates and will be fully managed by Cambium CnMaestro.
The addition completes the high end of our switch portfolio. Also in the spring, we expect to release the PMP 456v, a single band 2X2 MIMO subscriber module as a low cost complement to the recently released PMP 450v a dual band 4X4 MIMO subscriber module. Finally, total devices under cnMaestro™ cloud management in Q4 '23 increased approximately 1% from Q3 '23 and was up over 14% year over year.
I will now turn the call over to John for a review of our Q4 '23 financial results and Q1 '24 and full year 2024 financial outlook.

Thanks, Morgan. Q4 '23 results include an $11 million reduction in revenues, primarily as a result of incentive to significantly discount certain enterprise inventory in order to move enterprise inventories in the channel. Further, we recorded additional inventory charges, which reflect the current state of the market and product demand.
The discounting decision was made with the goal to move excess inventory through the channel. In the near term, we expect that channel inventories will decline during the first half of 2024. And by the end of the first half of 2024, we will be at or below pre-pandemic levels. We are seeing the expected benefits of our cost reduction plans designed to align our cost structure to our 2024 operating plan. And we have focused our R&D resources on those products and projects that are most critical for Cambium's future success.
Turning to the quarter, Cameron reported revenues of $40.2 million for Q4 '23. Revenues decreased by 7% quarter-over-quarter and were lower by 52% year over year. On a sequential basis, for Q4 '23, revenues decreased by $2.8 million.
The majority of the decline in revenues was the result of the continued low order volume for our enterprise business as distributors focus on decreasing their channel inventories as product lead times have come down as well as aggressive competitor discounting stock rotation and slowing economies, while PMP revenues decreased 4% quarter-over-quarter due to a large 28 GHz fixed 5G shipment from Omega during Q3 23, partially offset by the strength in North America from our 6 GHz PMP products.
As expected, we had strong shipments of our PTP defense products. We expect some improvement in orders for the PMP business with the anticipated approval of six gigahertz spectrum, we have seen PMP channel inventories remain stable. Revenues of $40.2 million decreased by $44.3 million year-over-year, primarily due to lower enterprise revenues.
PMP revenues decreased 24% year over year with the weakness primarily from regions outside of North America. PTP revenues increased 3% year over year due to higher revenues for defense products in North America and Amea by region, North America increased sequentially by 52%, while all other regions weakened.
Moving to our gross margin, our non-GAAP gross margin for Q4 '23 of negative 19.4% compared to 49.6% in Q4 '22. The year-over-year decrease in our non-GAAP gross margin was primarily due to the $11 million reduction in revenues as a result of price incentives provided to distributors and inventory charges of approximately $18.9 million related to excess and obsolete inventories as well as unfavorable product mix as a result of lower enterprise revenues.
On a sequential basis, Q4 '23 non-GAAP gross margin of negative 19.4% compared to 27.7%. The lower quarter-over-quarter non-GAAP gross margin was primarily the result of higher enterprise inventory reserves, partially offset by higher revenues from our defense products, which have a higher margin than other products in our portfolio.
In Q4 '23, our non-GAAP gross profit dollars of negative $7.8 million decreased by $49.7 million compared to prior year and were lower by $19.7 million sequentially due to the lower revenues and higher inventory charges. For the full year 2023 non-GAAP gross margin declined to 33.8% compared to 49.5% from 2022 due to lower enterprise revenues, enterprise price incentives and higher inventory charges.
Non-GAAP total operating expenses include depreciation and amortization in Q4 23 decreased by approximately $2.4 million when compared to Q4 '22 and stood at $26.3 million or 65.5% of revenue. The decrease in operating expenses compared to the prior year period was primarily the result of cost reductions during the second half of 2023, which resulted in lower operating costs, primarily due to lower variable compensation, partially offset by increased wages due to inflationary salary increases effective January first, 2023, when compared to Q3 ‘23.
Non-GAAP operating expenses decreased by approximately $1.1 million during Q4 ‘23. The quarter-over-quarter decrease in operating expenses was due to lower G&A due to less professional services and lower R&D costs due to lower headcount.
For the full year 2023, non-GAAP operating expenses of $113 million were flat with higher wages due to inflation and higher headcount during the first half of the year, offset by cost reductions in the second half of the year through 2024, we will continue to maintain our strong cost control.
Non-GAAP net loss for Q4 '23 was $26.4 million or a loss of $0.95 per diluted share. Below our outlook for the quarter and compared to non-GAAP net income of $10.3 million or earnings of 36 for $0.36 per diluted share for Q4 ‘22 in that GAAP net loss of $12.1 million or a loss of $0.44 per diluted share during Q2 ‘23. The lower non-GAAP net income compared to the prior year was primarily due to lower enterprise and PMP revenues and a lower gross margin, while the lower net income compared to the prior quarter's results was primary.
The result of the enterprise pricing incentives and higher inventory charges. We have a direct had a direct impact on our gross margins, partially offset by lower operating expenses for the full year 2023 non-GAAP net loss was $30.7 million or $1.10 per diluted share compared to non-GAAP net income of $26.9 million or earnings of $0.94 per diluted share in 2022. Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 '23 was a loss of $32.9 million compared to positive $14.3 million for Q4 '22 and a loss of $14.4 million for Q3 '23. Full year 2023 adjusted EBITDA was at negative $34.2 million compared to a positive $38.8 million for the full year 2022.
Moving to cash flow. Cash used in operating activities was 16.2 million (sic - see press release "$6.2 million") for Q4 ‘23 and compares to cash provided by operating activities of $4 million for Q4 22 and cash used in operating activities of $200,000 for Q3 '23 during Q4 '23, we executed and converting receivables into cash and managing payables and working capital. Our goal for 2024 is to reduce our inventory balances to closer to $40 million as we return to pre pandemic levels.
Turning to the balance sheet, cash totaled $18.7 million as of December 31, 2023, a decrease of $8.8 million from Q3 '23. The sequential decrease in cash primarily reflects lower revenues and material purchases, suppliers and capital expenditures. As of December 31st, 2023, we have not yet drawn on our $45 million revolver, although we may draw a portion of the revolver during the first half of 2024, net inventories of $66.9 million.
In Q4 '23 decreased by $12.9 million from Q3 '23 and were higher by 9.8 million year over year. Net inventories were lower sequentially due to higher inventory reserves and shipments into the channel. Inventories continue to decline sequentially for enterprise, while PMP channel inventories were stable, we continue to take aggressive actions to work with our distributors and return enterprise channel inventories to pre pandemic levels.
In summary, the fourth quarter results are not lower than anticipated as result of higher discounting of enterprise products in reaction to the market conditions as well as higher inventory reserves. As expected, our PTP business grew sequentially.
Our gross margin decreased sequentially as a result of the higher inventory charges as well as a very competitive pricing environment for the enterprise business, we continue to see improvements in channel inventories, which bodes well for the future. We continue to manage costs prudently and the actions we have taken should improve future operating performance as a non-GAAP breakeven operating, our profitability is now approximately $60 million in revenue during 2024.
While we expect to see a slower but improving start for the enterprise business during the first half of the year, as enterprise channel inventories continues to decline, we believe we will regain scale while improving operational efficiency during the second half of the year, we are optimistic about the expected near term approval by the FCC of the 6 GHz spectrum we are excited about the number of opportunities in our growing and profitable defense business and our ongoing product development initiatives as we consolidate to a small number of platforms over the next few years.
Moving to the first quarter and full year 2024 financial outlook. Cambium Networks' financial outlook does not include the potential impact of any possible future financial transactions acquisitions, pending legal matters or other transactions considering our current visibility. As of today, our Q1 '24 financial outlook is expected to be as follows. Revenues between $43 million to $48 million, representing growth of approximately 7% to 19% sequentially due in part to growth in our enterprise business PMP business, partially offset by seasonality in our PTP defense business.
Non-GAAP gross margin between 41% to 44%, non-GAAP operating expenses between $25.4 million to $26.4 million and non-GAAP operating loss between $5.3 million to $7.8 million, interest expense net of approximately $800,000, and non-GAAP net loss between $6.1 million to $8.6 million or net loss per diluted per diluted share between $0.22 to $0.31.
Adjusted EBITDA loss between $4.1 million to %6.6 million and adjusted EBITDA margin between negative 8.6% to negative 15.4%. Our non-GAAP effective income tax rate is immaterial approximately $28 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding cash requirements are expected to be as follows. For Q1 paydowns at $700,000, cash interest approximately $600,000, and capital expenditures $2 million to $3 million.
Full year 2024 financial outlook is expected to be as follows. Revenues between to $215 million to $245 million, representing a decrease of between 2% to an increase of approximately 11%. Non-GAAP gross margin approximately 44%, non-GAAP net loss between $13.6 million to net income of $2.3 million or between a loss of $0.48 per diluted share to net earnings of $0.08 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA margin between negative 2.7% to positive 4.1%. For the year capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $9 million to $11 million.
I will now turn the call back to Morgan for some closing remarks.
We have made good progress with our channel partners to bring channel inventories to a more appropriate level in recognition of much more shorter product lead times, which has impacted revenues. This is an industry wide issue, which will recover over time.
As enterprise channel inventories are digested, our sales out of the channel have remained relatively stable and we are working to ensure this continues in the future. Internally, we've established new processes for planning and mitigating future inventory levels and improved our visibility into the channel to adjust faster to product lead times. And I believe we've come a long way in a short period of time.
Our PMP business is primed with multiple new products to address the growth cycle once the FCC approves 6 GHz spectrum over the past six months, I have been primarily internally focused working with the team on product development, improving our processes and developing our overall direction. I have been pleased with the collaboration willingness to change and the desire to exceed succeed that I've seen from all employees, we have reduced operational costs while supporting a large existing customer and product base and developing future platforms. While this is not easy. It has been necessary and was executed with full support.
While I would like to consolidate our products into platforms more quickly, this is being managed in an evolutionary manner I'm now focused more on our go-to-market strategy, specifically how we address enterprise beyond our core customers. The critical steps to growth include not just the great products we have and continue to develop, but also improving our engagement with distributors and value-added resellers who can demonstrate Cambium's value proposition to end customers.
I have been and will continue to spend more time with our customers and channel partners to ensure that we're aligned with their needs. These are challenging times for Cambium and the industry, and I'd like to share my appreciation for the continued focus and collaboration of our employees, partners and customers. This concludes our prepared remarks. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Michelle and begin the Q&A.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions)
Simon Leopold, Raymond James.

Simon Leopold

Great. Thank you for taking the question. First thing I wanted to ask about was really how we should think about modeling the enterprise or why five business in that in your March forecast? Are you assuming that you're still taking product back and sort of when do we get back to normal. So just looking for a little bit extra handholding on that particular line item. And then I've got a follow-up.

Sure, Simon. Thanks. Yes. So we said that we'll be back, I'll call it to normal times with our inventory position enterprise by the end of the first half, we've been consistent. That's what I said last time. We believe that that will occur. I also noted that our stock rotations in this area are decreasing on a quarterly basis, and we expect that to be normal at a similar time. So you're just going to see sequentially growing revenues in this area throughout the year?

Yes, I think that as well, Simon, you know, we are seeing enterprise recovery here throughout 2024 sequentially, we'll be getting better. Every quarter will still be down year over year though for enterprise.

Simon Leopold

What do you what are you seeing in terms of the growth of shipments to customers. So if we ignore that what you've taken back and the discounting, so we just look at what the channel is generating, what's that level of sales.

So I think we said on our last call, we're in the range of $15 million to $20 million on a quarterly basis, and that remains unchanged.

Simon Leopold

Great. That's very helpful. The follow-up was in terms of trying to think about the six gigahertz products and how we should think about that. I'm presuming that once the FCC approvals done and that frequency opens up and you have orders in hand that we would see something like a step function in terms of revenue that you'd recognize, let's just say, hypothetically, in your third quarter, can you give us a little bit more guidance in terms of how you think about that manifesting itself in your business in your financial statements? Thank you.

Yes, that's a good question, Simon. Bob, you know, once we get approval from the FCC, we're prepared to start shipping orders. There's documentation that still needs to be completed internally, but we're very close to seeing that happen. But we're ready once the SEC approved that.
In terms of guidance, specifically on six gigahertz ITO, we tend to not to guide that specifically on that, we'll stick with our overall guidance range for the full year for 2024, of which we said in our prepared remarks, will be in the range of to 15 to 45.

Simon Leopold

Thank you for taking the questions.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.
George Notter, Jefferies.

George Notter

Thanks very much, guys. Um, I'd love to just sort of step back and dumb kind of see where you are Morgan, just in terms of the BIGGER plan for the Company, the strategy, how have you kind of had your mindset evolve around product strategy on where the company is going to differentiate going forward, what business lines are going to focus on? I mean, anything you can tell us on the revised view would be great. Thanks.

Sure thing. Thanks, George. I don't think it's different very much from the last of last call. As I said on the last call, I look internally first to make sure that I understand the product lines and that we improve our operational cadence and then work on the strategy from IAM. from a product standpoint, how we consolidate onto platforms.
And then I look externally, how do we improve our channel? And I don't think that's changed. I think what we see in the market for and demand for point-to-point government means that we will continue to support this product line and evolve that. I think the point to multipoint business, it really is about platforming supporting all these different the different frequencies from a single sort of product line that can do it.
All is something which we're working on figuring out ways of doing it in an enterprise. I think most of that is a go to market improvement as we get our brand and the pretty complete product set that we have here at Cambium out to the market.
So I guess in summary, not much of a change from last time. This is now in the execution phase with phase which takes time.

George Notter

Got it. And then you guys mentioned the competitive environment. I think a number of times in the monologue. I think specifically as it relates to enterprise, can you talk a bit about what you're seeing precisely?

Yes. So after chips became available from virtually everybody in the industry goes through for enterprise goes through channel and the channel became a very full as everybody shipped the orders they had. We were a little bit ahead of the game. But as the channel becomes less full and we've talked about how we've reduced our channel inventory channel works to reduce all of its inventory, things will return back to more normal, a more normal cadence.
So all the while this was going on, I would say and demand very similar note, no real appreciable change, but the channel decreasing its holdings back to a point where it can refresh its stock within now very short lead times is kind of where we're headed.

George Notter

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.
John Roy, Water Tower Research.

John Roy

Yes. And obviously, you're expecting a pretty good move in the second half of the year. Could you give us any kind of color on any kind of supply chain issues you might have ramping up that fast kind of quiet there on supply chain at this point?

Absolutely. So we run a I'll call it, the OEM outsource strategy. So ramping up and down is really about material supply. And we monitor this now very closely and would prepare or will are prepared for the appropriate ramp-up in this. And we don't really see that as an issue in any way, shape or form from our perspective, this is simply executing what we've actually started to become fairly good at.

I think I'd just add that lead times have dropped have dropped significantly from the pandemic. Now so we're back in a normal environment. So executing on customer orders is going to be much more efficient operationally for us than in the past. So I think we feel good about it.

In addition to the second component, because we manufacture around the world of shipping times and costs us also it's gone down appreciably. So we really don't see I don't see issues this year. There are occasional components that we see lead time some going out on or going up in price, and we manage that as part of our normal process.

John Roy

Right. And Wendy, one last kind of question on that and the FTC approval, 6 GHz. If that gets pushed out, do you feel like you need to take additional steps or kind of just provided that --

in terms of what you're managing time, but --

John Roy

managing costs here?

Yes. Obviously, you know, we're very cautious about making those types of statements, but we are in a very good, strong cost position right now containing costs and working capital in. And given the potential of that happening, we're prepared to take whatever actions necessary to maintain strong cost control culture across our portfolios, it internally and our resources.

John Roy

Great. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions)
Tim Savageaux, Northland Capital Markets.

Tim Savageaux

Hi good afternoon from a first question, and I do have a follow-up. Looks like you're doubling your CapEx here in calendar '24 (inaudible)

So our outlook for CapEx for 2024 is $9 million to $11 million. That's pretty much well-being will be tracking on an annual basis. In fact, it's a little lower than 2020 or 2023 by $2 million.

Tim Savageaux

I'm going to have to check my numbers then okay. It looks like you didn't have a million a quarter the last two quarters, but I'll go take another look. All right well, that's a very interesting point. Second question I had talked about modest growth for PMT for the year, and I'm just trying and also declines in enterprise. And I think you probably ought to set a baseline there for Q1, just in terms of the number we're having reported negative 5.5 for Q4. I think that would be helpful.
And I appreciate the color on the decline for the year and after a solid strong growth year in PTP, I mean, do you expect growth of that magnitude 20% to continue or moderate and which segment between PMP and pointed point, would you expect to grow faster on a percentage basis?

Yes, for good question, Tim, for point-to-point at looking at, we had a very strong 2020 year, 2023. Going forward into 2024, we're looking at flat to modest growth there for point to point. And then PMP business. We expect sequential growth there and point to multipoint and somewhere between the mid to upper 10s growth for point-to-multipoint.

Tim Savageaux

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Peter Schuman for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Michelle. During Q1 '24, Cambium Networks will be presenting and meeting with investors on March 5, at the JMP Securities Technology Conference in March 19, at the ROTH Annual Conference. In the meantime, you're always welcome to contact our Investor Relations department at (847) 264-2188 with any questions that arise. Thank you for joining us. And this concludes today's call.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's quarterly earnings call. Thank you for your participation. You may now log off.