Silicon Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ:SLAB) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Silicon Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ:SLAB) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 7, 2024
Silicon Laboratories Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-2.19125 EPS, expectations were $-1.44. Silicon Laboratories Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Jonathan, and I will be your conference operator today. Welcome to Silicon Labs Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, today's program is recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Giovanni Pacelli, Silicon Labs Senior Director of Finance. Giovanni, please go ahead.
Giovanni Pacelli: Thank you, Jonathan, and good morning, everyone. We are recording this meeting, and a replay will be available for 4 weeks on the Investor Relations section of our website at investor.silabs.com. Our earnings press release and the accompanying financial tables are also available on our website. Joining me today are Silicon Labs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Matt Johnson; and Interim Chief Financial Officer, Mark Mauldin. They will discuss our fourth quarter financial performance and reviewing recent business activities. We will take questions after our prepared comments and our remarks today will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We base these forward-looking statements on information available to us as of the date of this conference call and assume no obligation to update these statements in the future.
We encourage you to review our SEC filings, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Additionally, during our call today, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation of our GAAP to non-GAAP results is included in the company's earnings press release and on the Investor Relations section of the Silicon Labs website. I'll now turn the call over to Silicon Lab's, Chief Executive Officer, Matt Johnson. Matt?
Matt Johnson : Thanks, Giovanni, and good morning, everyone. The Silicon Labs team delivered fourth quarter results above the midpoint of our guidance. During the quarter, we saw reductions in both channel and end customer inventory. We expect end customer inventory destocking to continue in Q1. On a unit basis, Disty inventory is now at lower levels than during the supply prices. We believe Q4 of 2023 represents our low point of revenue. We expect to return to sequential growth starting in Q1 as our customers' inventory start to normalize, and we begin to see the further benefits of design wins ramping production. We've also seen slight improvements in our weekly bookings activity, but the management ability continues to be low.
We are encouraged by another year of outstanding design win achievement despite the challenges of the current operating environment. The projected lifetime revenue of our 2023 design wins was up low double digits year-over-year, in line with the ambitious targets we set. These design wins span a broad range of technologies, applications and customers, and we are expecting delivered strong growth in earnings power as the market dynamics improve. Before we turn the call over to Mark, I would like to take a moment to express our gratitude to John Hollister, who has stepped down after 20 years of dedicated service to Silicon Labs, 10 of those years as CFO. John's financial stewardship has been instrumental to our success over the years and his insights and partnerships have been invaluable.
On behalf of the entire team, thank you, John, for your outstanding work and commitment, and we wish you the best as he joined GlobalFoundries. In addition, I would like to thank Mark Mauldin for stepping in so effectively during this transition. I can also share that the search for our new CFO is going well, and we're impressed by the caliber and potential fit of the candidates we're engaged with and are looking forward to concluding the search as quickly as possible. Now, I'll hand it over to Mark for the financial update. Mark?
Mark Mauldin : Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Fourth quarter revenue was $87 million, above the midpoint of our guidance and down 66% year-on-year. I&C is declined sequentially in the quarter, primarily due to product and customer mix. Unit volume was also down on a sequential basis. Revenue was down year-over-year for both business units in the quarter. The Industrial and Commercial business unit ended at $60 million down 62% from the same period last year and 51% sequentially. All 3 product groups in I&C declined in the fourth quarter with a broad industrial category experiencing the largest decline. However, for the full year, the smart cities and commercial product groups achieved record revenue levels, driven primarily by strength in electronic shelf labels and metering.
Weak demand and high customer inventories continue to negatively impact the home and life markets. H&L revenue was down 73% year-over-year and 67% sequentially at $27 million. Despite the near-term weakness, we are well positioned as demand recovers and inventories normalize with growth expected at smart home and particular strength in Connected Health. Successful market initiatives are driving H&L design wins above our targets in terms of projected lifetime revenue. Distribution revenue was 63% for the fourth quarter, down sequentially and well below our typical levels. Inventory in the channel decreased to 79 days. And on a units basis, this fee inventory was down to its most level since the divestiture. The decrease in test mix in the quarter was due to a temporary shift toward direct customers as channel partners work through their inventory.
This mix shift also contributed to lower ASPs in the quarter. Our top 10 end customers were about 42% of revenue for the quarter and increased from historical trends driven by the lower revenue level and the mix shift. Non-GAAP gross margin ended lower than expected at 51% due to product and customer mix. We continue to see a generally stable pricing and input cost environment with no significant change expected on a like-for-like basis in the next quarter. Non-GAAP operating expenses of $91 million were better than expected largely due to the earlier pooling effects of the restructuring, which commenced in November. Non-GAAP operating loss was $47 million, and our non-GAAP effective tax rate was lower for the quarter at 14%. Non-GAAP loss of $1.19 exceeded our guidance, driven largely by the OpEx and tax rate favorability.
For the full year, our non-GAAP operating margin was 8%, non-GAAP earnings for the full year were $1.65. On a GAAP basis, gross margin ended at 51%. GAAP operating expenses were $117 million, which was better than expected. GAAP operating loss was $73 million for the fourth quarter and $24 million for the full year. GAAP loss per share was $2.19 for the fourth quarter and $1.09 for the full year. The GAAP results include an approximate $9 million charge for the separation costs associated with the reduction in workforce during the fourth quarter. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the year with cash and investments of $439 million. Our accounts receivable balance declined in the quarter to $29 million, indicative of the lower revenue levels.
Our days sales outstanding reverted back to 30 days reflecting strong collections in the quarter and no known bad debts from our customers. We added $27 million in net inventory in the quarter to $194 million. We anticipate that our internal inventory will level off in Q1. Inventory turns at about 1x. As a reminder, we hold a significant portion of our inventory in die bank, which provides flexibility as to its ultimate end-use application and customers and hope to mitigate inventory obsolescence risk. We continue to have $45 million outstanding on our revolving credit facility. Our Board of Directors has authorized a new share repurchase program in 2024 or $100 million. We will continue to be very opportunistic on share repurchases as we manage liquidity and optimize the use of working capital.
Overall, the balance sheet remains very healthy and well positioned to execute our strategy and weather the current market environment. As we announced last week, we identified a material weakness in our internal controls related to the operation and documentation of certain inventory controls. There was no impact to any amounts reported in our current or historical financial statements. We are in the process of developing a plan to enhance the design and operating effectiveness of our internal controls to address the material weakness and still expect to file our Form 10-K in a timely manner. Before returning the call to Matt, I will cover guidance for the first quarter. We expect revenue for the first quarter to be in the range of $100 million to $110 million.
We anticipate both business units to grow in the quarter. We expect non-GAAP gross margin in the first quarter to be approximately 52%, and lower gross margin for this quarter continues to reflect the fixed cost absorption with lower revenue levels. We expect non-GAAP operating expenses in the first quarter to be approximately $96 million. We expect the non-GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 20% in the first quarter. Our non-GAAP loss per share for Q1 is expected to be in the range of $0.92 to $1.04. On a GAAP basis, we expect gross margin to be -- we expect GAAP operating expenses to be approximately $18 million, and we expect GAAP loss per share to be between $1.89 and $2.05 per share. I will now turn the call back over to Matt.
Matt Johnson : Thanks, Mark. Looking ahead in 2024, we're excited about several trends in wireless connectivity, including more matter certified products coming to market as well as strong growth in our life, smart cities and commercial segments. In Q4, the CSA Released Matter 1.2, which extends the benefits of matter to a wider array of devices, including household appliances, air conditioning and smoke alarms. At CES this year, we are encouraged by the strong level of engagement with customers, ecosystem partners and ISPs regarding the matter protocol. It's clear that interest in matter and the availability of matter-enabled devices is accelerated. As part of this, we announced our collaboration with Arduino to make matter protocol in advanced IoT development more accessible to all.
We are partnering to integrate Arduino’s first-ever matter software libraries with Silicon Labs hardware so developers get our leading security, energy efficiency and processing power for matter in an intuitive ease use development environment. Additionally, Samsung recently announced matter label connectivity in the smart TVs and selected appliances that includes our Silicon and are currently hitting the market. We are excited to work with Samsung on their SmartLink platform as they expand their matter [indiscernible] ecosystem. Wi-Fi is in an increasing important role in IoT devices, including in conjunction with matter. In Q4, we expanded our portfolio of industry-leading Series 2-based products with a soft launch of our ultra-low power Wi-Fi solution to 91%, which was selected as non-RE in the embedded category of the CES Innovation Awards.
The 917 has the lowest power consumption of any competing Wi-Fi 6 products on the market, enabling meaningfully longer battery lives to a whole new class of applications. We believe this will continue to drive new opportunities and design wins as customers look to integrate Wi-Fi into their products. In our Life segment, we are securing new wins in Connected Health and APAC where we are engaged in more than a dozen customers for continuous glucose monitors. The demand for connected health devices is growing rapidly, driven by demographics and an increase in chronic illnesses or diseases like diabetes. And we are confident that our solutions will continue to gain traction and serve this market well. In 2023, we achieved record revenue in our commercial product group as retail environment continue to digitize.
For example, in electronic shelf labeling, we ramp new designs with SES-Imagotag, [indiscernible] Group. In addition, we have also secured new design wins in the ESL space for shelf labels, cameras and sensors with our moves solutions. The smart cities also had a record year, driven largely by meter However, we're also gaining share in the solar market with integrated solutions for both wireless activity and compute and solar panels, which helped to optimize energy production and increase first. 2023 was a difficult year characterized by weak demand and high inventory levels. While we're seeing things moving in the right direction, the market is still working through its correction. As we stated, we believe Q4 represents our volume, and we expect to return to sequential growth starting in Q1.
In closing, I want to thank the Silicon Labs team for their execution in securing significant design wins and gaining share. prudently managing our expenses and advancing industry-leading technology solutions for the IoT. Despite the near-term challenges, the long-term growth trajectory of our end markets and within those markets remains unchanged. As inventory normalizes, demand improves and design wins ramp into production, we are well positioned to return to growth. I'll now hand it back over to Giovanni for Q&A.
Giovanni Pacelli : Before we open the call for Q&A, I'd like to announce our participation in Morgan Stanley's 2024 TMT Conference in San Francisco on March 5. [Operator Instructions]. Jonathan?
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