NXP Semiconductors Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 5, 2024

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello, everyone. This is Jeff Palmer from NXP. Thank you, and welcome to the NXP Semiconductors Third Quarter Earnings Call. With me on the call today is Curt Sievers, NXP's President and CEO and Bill Betts, our CFO. The call today is being recorded and will be available for replay from our corporate website.

Operator

Today's call will include forward looking statements that invoke risks and uncertainties that could cause NXP's results to differ materially from management's current expectations. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the macroeconomic impact on the specific end markets in which we operate, the sale of new and existing products and our expectations for the financial results for the Q4 of 2024. NXP undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward looking statements. For a full disclosure on forward looking statements, please refer to our press release. Additionally, we'll refer to certain non GAAP financial measures, which are driven primarily by discrete events that management does not consider to be directly related to NXP's underlying core operating performance.

Operator

Pursuant to Regulation G, NXP has provided reconciliations of the non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our Q3 2024 earnings press release, which will be furnished to the SEC on Form 8 ks and available on NXP's website in the Investor Relations section at nxp.com. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Kirk.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call this morning. Beginning with quarter 3, NXP delivered quarterly revenue of 3,250,000,000 dollars in line with our overall guidance of down 5% year on year and up 4% sequentially. While we experienced some strength against our expectations in the communication infrastructure, mobile and automotive end markets, we were confronted with increasing macro related weakness in the industrial and IoT markets. At the total company level, sequential growth was led by China.

Speaker 1

Non GAAP operating margin in quarter 3 was 35.5%, 50 basis points above the year ago period and 40 basis points above the midpoint of our guidance. Year on year operating profit performance was due to a combination of lower revenue and gross profit, partially offset by favorable operating expenses. Now let me turn to the specific trends in our focus end markets. In Automotive, revenue was €1,830,000,000 down 3% versus the year ago period and in line with our guidance range. The inventory digestion at our main Tier 1 customers continues to occur with further pressure coming from slowing European and North American car OEM end demand.

Speaker 1

At the same time, we experienced healthy growth in the China and Asia Pacific automotive end markets. Turning to Industrial and IoT, revenue was €563,000,000 down 7% versus the year ago periods and below our guidance range. During the quarter, we experienced weaker than expected trends globally. In mobile, revenue was €407,000,000 up 8% versus the year ago period and at the high end of our guidance range in what is normally a seasonally strong period. In Communication, Infrastructure and Other, revenue was $451,000,000 down 19% year on year and above the high end of our guidance as several RFID programs ramped stronger than originally anticipated.

Speaker 1

From a channel perspective, distribution inventory was 1.9 months, up from the 1.7 months in quarter 2, following our attempts to stage dedicated mass market product in the channel. While at the same time sell through to distribution service customers in the European and American markets was somewhat slower. Now let me turn to our expectations for quarter 4, 2024. We are guiding quarter 4 revenue to $3,100,000,000 down about 9% versus the Q4 of 2023 and down about 5% sequentially. Relative to our earlier expectations, we are taking a more conservative stance for quarter 4.

Speaker 1

Hence, we will also aim to hold channel inventory approximately flat sequentially at 1.9 months or about 8 weeks. This is because we began to see increasing weakness in the industrial and IoT market already during quarter 3, as well as an unexpected in manufacturing PMI below 50 across all regions except China. Furthermore, we find ourselves exposed to a broad slowdown of European and North American automotive OEM outlooks for 2024, only partially compensated by the aforementioned strength in China Automotive. This leads to more stringent inventory reductions at our Tier 1 customers below the natural end demand. So at the midpoint, we anticipate the following trends in our business during quarter 4.

Speaker 1

Automotive is anticipated to be down in the high single digit percent range versus quarter 3, 2023 excuse me, versus quarter 4, 2023 and down in the mid single digit percent range versus quarter 3, 20 24. Industrial and IoT is expected to be down by 20% versus quarter 4, 2023 and down in the mid single digit percent range sequentially. Mobile is expected to be down in the low single digit percent range both versus quarter 4, 2023 and sequentially. And finally, Communication Infrastructure and Other is expected to be down in the mid single digit percent range both versus quarter 4, 2023 and sequentially. In summary, our guidance for the Q4 reflects broader macro weakness in Europe and North America, only partially compensated by strength in China.

Speaker 1

The cyclical rebound, which we had anticipated for the second half of twenty twenty four has not materialized. The soft and uncertain demand environment appears to be causing the Tier 1 customers to take a very cautious stance on their inventory positions. These trends are consistent with the multiple profit warnings issued by major Western Automotive OEMs as well as the contracting global manufacturing PMI trends, which are weighing on demand in the industrial and IoT market.

Speaker 2

The net impact to NXP are lower than expected order trends from our direct customers and distribution partners.

Speaker 1

Notwithstanding this more challenging short term demand environment, we are very confident we have deployed a long term winning strategy, focusing our investments to succeed in the fastest growing secular end markets of automotive and industrial IoT. In the short term, we will maniacally focus on managing what is in our control by making the right decisions for the long term health of the business. This will enable NXP to drive resilient profitability and earnings even in an uncertain demand environment. And now I would like to pass the call to Bill for a review of our financial performance. Bill?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Kurt, and good morning to everyone on today's call. As Kurt has already covered the drivers of the revenue during Q3 and provided our revenue outlook for Q4, I will move to the financial highlights. Overall, our Q3 financial performance was good. Revenue was in line, non GAAP gross margin was near the low end of our guidance, more than offset by favorable operating expenses, resulting in better operating profit. Turning to Q3 specifics, total revenue was $3,250,000,000 down 5% year on year.

Speaker 2

We generated $1,890,000,000 in non GAAP gross profit and reported a non GAAP gross margin of 58.2 percent, down 30 basis points year on year and 30 basis points below the midpoint of our guidance range due to product mix. Total non GAAP operating expenses were $738,000,000 or 22.7 percent of revenue, down $65,000,000 year on year, although this was $22,000,000 below the midpoint of our guidance due to lower variable compensation, project spend and payroll. From a total operating profit perspective, non GAAP operating profit was $1,150,000,000 and non GAAP operating margin was 35.5%, up 50 basis points year on year and 40 basis points above the midpoint of our guidance. Non GAAP interest expenses was $70,000,000 with taxes for ongoing operations of $182,000,000 or a 16.8% non GAAP effective tax rate. Non controlling interest was $11,000,000 and stock based compensation, which is not included in our non GAAP earnings was 115,000,000 dollars Taken together, we delivered non GAAP earnings per share of $3.45 slightly ahead of our midpoint guidance of $3.42 Now I would like to turn to the changes in our cash and debt.

Speaker 2

Our total debt at the end of Q3 was $10,180,000,000 with our cash balance of $3,150,000,000 down $111,000,000 sequentially due to the cumulative effect of capital returns, internal CapEx, investments in previously announced equity accounted foundry joint ventures and cash generation during the quarter. The resulting net debt was $7,030,000,000 and we exited the quarter with a trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA of $5,240,000,000 Our ratio of net debt to trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA at the end of Q3 was at 1.3 times and our 12 month adjusted EBITDA interest coverage ratio was 22.9x. During Q3, we paid $259,000,000 in cash dividends and repurchased $305,000,000 of our shares. Taken together, we returned $564,000,000 to our shareholders, representing 95% of non GAAP free cash flow. In addition, on August 29, the NXB Board of Directors authorized an increase of our existing capacity to purchase an additional $2,000,000,000 of buybacks, with a total balance of $2,640,000,000 at the end of Q3.

Speaker 2

Furthermore, since the end of Q3 and through Friday, November 1, we repurchased an additional $117,000,000 of our shares under an established 10b5-1 program. Turning to working capital metrics, days of inventory was 149 days, an increase of 1 day sequentially, while distribution channel inventory was 1.9 months or approximately 8 weeks. Days receivable were 30 days, up 3 days sequentially and days payable were 60 days, a decrease of 4 days versus the prior quarter. Taken together, our cash conversion cycle was 119 days, an increase of 8 days versus the prior quarter. Cash flow from operations was 779,000,000 and net CapEx was $186,000,000 or 6 percent of revenue, resulting in non GAAP free cash flow of $593,000,000 or 18 percent of revenue.

Speaker 2

Turning to our expectations for the Q4. As Kurt mentioned, we anticipate Q4 revenue to be $3,100,000,000 plus or minus about 100,000,000 dollars At the midpoint, this is down 9% year on year and down 5% sequentially. We expect non GAAP gross margin to be about 57.5 percent plus or minus 50 basis points. Furthermore, our guidance assumes flat channel inventory at about 8 weeks exiting Q4. This reflects our continued discipline of proactively managing our distribution channel, especially during uncertain demand environments.

Speaker 2

Operating expenses are expected to be $725,000,000 plus or minus 10,000,000 dollars Taken together, we see non GAAP operating margin to be 34.1% at the midpoint. We estimate non GAAP financial expenses to be 77,000,000 dollars with the non GAAP tax rate to be 16.8 percent of profit before tax at the midpoint. Non controlling interest and other will be $9,000,000 Our guidance assumes a $2,000,000 loss from our equity accounted Foundry joint ventures. We suggest for modeling purposes, you use an average share count of 257,000,000 shares. Taken together at the midpoint, this implies a non GAAP earnings per share of $3.13 We expect stock based compensation, which is not included in our non GAAP guidance to be 118,000,000 Turning to uses of cash.

Speaker 2

We expect capital expenditures to be around 5% of revenue. We also will make a $400,000,000 capacity access fee and a $120,000,000 equity investment into BSMC as well as a $52,000,000 equity investment into ESMC, which are our 2 equity accounted foundry joint ventures, which are under construction. In closing, I would like to highlight 3 items.

Speaker 3

First,

Speaker 2

we will continue to return all excess cash to our owners through buybacks and dividends. We expect our Q4 capital returns to be above $700,000,000 2nd, despite the macro headwinds, NXP will continue to navigate and operate within its long term financial model. And lastly, we look forward to you joining our 2024 Investor Day on Thursday, November 7 at 8:30 am, where we will provide an update to our long term strategic plan and financial models. I would like to now turn it back to the operator for your questions.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Ross Seymore of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Speaker 5

Hi, guys. Thanks for letting me ask the question. Kurt, it seems like a lot of things changed during the course of the quarter. You're not alone in highlighting weakness, and I don't think it's NXP specific. But can you just talk a little bit about the specific customer behavior changes you saw?

Speaker 5

Because up until now you seem to have set things up pretty conservatively throughout the year. So the guide down seems to be a little more of a surprise for you guys than the peers just given the setup appeared to be a little more favorable heading into the quarter and guide?

Speaker 1

Yes. Thanks and good morning, Ross. Indeed, we were taken by some surprise, I would say, in the August timeframe during quarter 3 by a broadening weakness in the industrial and IoT markets, pretty much across the board, which led to a much more cautious stance on their side, Ross, relative to also their inventory positions. And the same is now broadening when you ask for the guidance for Q4, it's clearly broadening into the Automotive segment. There I would exclude China from these discussions.

Speaker 1

I think you've heard similar from our peers. China actually appears to be quite strong. Our growth was led by China in quarter 3 and the sequential growth. And also in quarter 4, China actually will grow from a sequential perspective over quarter 3 across Automotive and Industrial and IoT. But that weakness and that customer behavior you were asking for is really specifically strong now in the 4th quarter in the Western Automotive and Industrial segments, where customers and you saw all the profit warnings from the car OEMs, for example, where now the Tier 1s are aiming to further reduce their inventory.

Speaker 1

So our trends to undership against natural end demand is becoming even tougher, Ross. That's how I would characterize the customer behavior. It almost felt like everybody from them kept up their forecasts and then suddenly August, September, they started to drop. And that is now rippling through to the Tier 1s, which are becoming even more cautious on what they want to hold from NXP in terms of inventory. You know that we have talked about this extended inventory digestion before, but that has now extended because of the end market weakness.

Speaker 5

Thanks for that color. And I guess looking forward, Bill, switching to the gross margin side, I know that you talked about for the quarter. So just can you talk a little bit about utilization that's leading to the roughly 0.5 point to a point decline in gross margin? And how do we think about the levers for gross margin going forward? At the risk of kind of front running what you're going to talk about on Thursday, what are the pluses and minuses to that in a weaker environment where inventory seems to be a little bit more persistently elevated?

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you, Ross. And quickly on our Q3, our gross margin was missed and you can probably see that very clearly through our segment reporting where industrial IoT revenues were 80% of that is service through the distribution to carry accretive margins for us. And we also have a bit stronger mobile revenues, which are slightly dilutive to corporate margins a bit. And so that's why we missed 30 basis points in Q3.

Speaker 2

We obviously see that trend. Kurt talked about the segments where clearly industrial IoT will be stepping down again. So that becomes a mix headwind going into Q4. Obviously declining by $150,000,000 we do also lose some fall through over our fixed costs. Related to inventory, you saw from a days perspective, we're kind of holding ourselves.

Speaker 2

But clearly when you see our Q report, you're going to see increased finished goods. And basically those finished goods, we were going to put in the channel, but the sell through wasn't there. So we held them on our balance sheet. And so it will probably take us a quarter or 2 to get back to where we want to be from an inventory perspective. Now more longer term on the gross margins, again, clearly we're running our utilizations in the low 70s.

Speaker 2

We expect to continue to run them in the low 70s probably at least for the first half of twenty 25. So that will flip and become a tailwind when we decide and see sequential improvements in our revenue sometime in 2025 related to it. Clearly, we have mix and that's a tailwind that would come in our way into the future as we continue to ramp our new products. More importantly, we're going to talk about during Analyst Day, our real strategic structural changes that we plan to make more longer term, which obviously I said many times that 58% is not our final destination. And please hold tight for a couple more days and I'm going to walk you through that gross margin journey over the next 3 years and plus some as well related to it.

Speaker 2

But we feel pretty good. Obviously, we have to make sure we burn off some finished goods here and going into Q4 and Q1 and rebalance the inventory a bit. But remember, we're holding about 3 weeks onto our balance sheet, which is margin accretive when we do ship it into the channel. We're holding that quite tightly at about 8 weeks. We believe 8 weeks is probably one of the lowest compared to all our peers.

Speaker 2

And once the environment normalizes, we will bring that back up to 11 weeks. It's just a matter of when that will be when the macro improves.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Thanks,

Speaker 4

Ross. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Cosgrove of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

Speaker 7

Yes, thank you. Good morning. I guess the first question is with regard to the channel inventory. And I know that you wanted to increase that somewhat. I guess, is it right to interpret that the increase in channel inventory was just a function of the end markets being larger than you thought?

Speaker 7

And I guess in the context of your customers taking the inventory down so low, how does that affect your view of where you want your own inventory to be as you go into next year on both the channel basis, on an internal basis?

Speaker 1

So hi, Chris. Let me take the channel question and the internal inventory question will be answered by Bill in a minute. So on the channel, yes, I think you got it exactly right. We wanted to increase by a digit from 1.7 to 1.8, which we did. And by the way, let me remind you why we want to do this.

Speaker 1

We want to be sure that critical product for competitiveness in the channel is probably staged on the shelves. Since most of our competitors have higher positions there, we want to be sure we don't fall behind in terms of competitiveness. And yes, we inched another digit higher, which was then a function of the late weakness in the quarter, which I just talked about, which reduced the sell through more than we had anticipated. That's why we indeed inched a little bit higher than we had anticipated in the plan.

Speaker 2

And Bill, maybe you speak about the internal inventory targets. Absolutely. Clearly, the macro environment is weaker now than 90 days ago, as Kurt explained. So I expect our inventory levels internally to remain elevated for the next couple of quarters until we obviously grow revenues again from a sequential standpoint. But again, at the same time, we are proactively reducing our foundry purchases, which are more variable in nature for us.

Speaker 2

And this will probably have an impact in the Q1 of 2025. Q4 obviously is limited because we placed these orders already in Q3. And again, as I talked to Ross, we're holding about 3 weeks of finished goods of inventory on our balance sheet. So we'll proactively manage that. And then as we replenish the channel, we will get that benefit relief with inventory coming down internally.

Speaker 2

Again, we think it's important to hold it very tightly and low at 8 weeks. And sometime in 2025, we'll bring this back to the 11 weeks when the macro improves. And again, I have to say, our majority of our inventory is long lived supporting our auto industrial markets and had very, very low obsolescence risk.

Speaker 7

Thank you. I guess as a follow-up, I'll ask a question, which I know is very difficult to answer, but you're going to get it. So I'll be the one to ask it, which is, do you think that we're pretty close to the bottom now? And recognize how difficult that is given the moving targets and such. But as an example, sort of normal seasonality is down to the Q1.

Speaker 7

I don't know if we should think about that differently given what's happened in the second half of this year. And I guess with what your customers are planning to do with inventory, does that give and bring it so low, does that give you some confidence that we're kind of approaching revenue bottom levels here?

Speaker 1

Yes. Let me try and go at this. This is a number of complex questions. So first of all, clearly, the forward looking, there is a lot of uncertainty around this. I mean, with all the unexpected downticks from a macro perspective in Automotive and Industrial, which we've seen over the past, say, 10 weeks, I want to be really careful in making strong statements for the longer future into next year.

Speaker 1

However, what we can offer is we do believe that probably quarter 1 will follow a pretty normal seasonal pattern for NXP, which is a high single digit sequential down from quarter 4 into quarter 1. We see no reason why we should be different to normal seasonality here into quarter 1. I don't want to go that far, Chris, to call the trough because I just don't know what the macro is going to do with all the uncertainty around us. I don't think we can do this. Yet, I do agree with you that with our strong discipline on the channel inventory and I had it in my prepared remarks, we keep it now flat again into quarter 4.

Speaker 1

So where we start to stage a bit into the 3rd quarter, we hold here. So we keep it flat into the Q4, which keeps us at a very low level of 8 weeks only. And also indeed with the direct customers at some point, inventory is just burnt. So yes, at some point, of course, that sets us up for a good growth. I just cannot call and don't want to call when that moment is.

Speaker 1

But I would say NXP from an inventory in the customer space perspective is actually pretty well positioned.

Speaker 7

Got it. Totally fair. Thank you.

Operator

Thanks, Chris.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes

Speaker 1

from the

Speaker 4

line of Vivek Arya of Bank of America Securities. Your line is now open.

Speaker 8

Thanks for taking my question. Kurt, what's NXT's relative exposure in a China based car versus a European premium car? So if let's say your China customers continue to take share, how does that content play out for NXP? And then this China strength, yes, you have mentioned it, some of the peers have mentioned it, how much of that is kind of pre buying before the elections? And does that kind of keep the industry exposed to in sourcing risks on a longer term basis?

Speaker 1

Yes. So hi, Vivek. First on our exposure to content per vehicle in China versus premium Western. There are damn tie end cars in the meantime in China, which have a similar set of features. So I would probably say that on the higher end cars in China, we have a very similar exposure from a content per vehicle perspective as we have in the Western world.

Speaker 1

And as we have discussed a couple of times before, since they are spinning new platforms faster, I dare to say that probably the growth of that content exposure is growing faster than in the rest of the world because they just get faster to the next innovation steps. They develop a new platform in 2 to 3 years, which gives us the opportunity to tap faster into a higher content opportunity. So over time that is actually strengthening. Now I from anything we can see, I don't think and that's sort of second half of your question, I don't think that they are staging inventory or something because of election or other external events. It is actually the success of the Chinese industry.

Speaker 1

I mean, if you look at the global SAAR, in the meantime, for the world, it has tipped down to a forecast of minus 2% this year. So global SAAR is going to decline by 2% this year. At the same time, China is going to grow by 2%. So you see the differential that China is actually doing better, which puts it at least to our estimate in a fair light relative to how our revenue develops better in China than in the other regions. The same holds true for this whole discussion about XCV, so electric vehicle penetration.

Speaker 1

In China, it keeps going strong. We just got the other week that data point that in September, September this year, 46% that was the penetration of XEVs in China. So almost 50% of the vehicles in China was then already electric. So the SAAR overall does well in China and the EV penetration is doing better than in the rest of the world. And that's for me a fair reason why I do believe that the China growth, which we are experiencing is sustainable.

Speaker 1

It's really their competitiveness locally and globally against the Western players. It's almost like what is lost in the West is won in China.

Speaker 8

And for my follow-up, I think you mentioned that Q1 you expect to be seasonal, if I heard correctly, which is down high single digits. But if I were to just take the average of just your automotive business over the last 7 years, including the COVID, that is more down like 1%, 2% or so on an average. I understand I seasonality could mean different things at different times. But what explains this large difference between what we have seen with NXCA over the last six or 7 years in Q1, especially in your automotive business versus what I think you are kind of alluding to for Q1 2025? Thank you.

Operator

Vivek, I'll take that. It's Jeff here.

Speaker 9

I don't think we're going

Operator

to provide a guidance by segment into Q1. As Kurt said on a previous question, we do expect total company to be seasonally down into Q1. And I think that's probably about as far ahead of our SKUs as we're going to get today.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Okay. We'll take the next question, operator.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Muir of Cantor. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Yes, good morning, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I was hoping you could give a little more color on the industrial slowdown that you're seeing. You talked about China strong and I'm assuming that's a little more IoT. So we'd love to hear kind of what whether North America, Europe kind of any changes in terms of geo where and where you're seeing weakness, whether it's broad isolated to say factory automation, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 1

Yes. Hi, CJ. Indeed, let me reconfirm. The weakness in Q3, but also now specifically going to Q4 is predominantly across the board from Europe and the U. S.

Speaker 1

In Industrial and IoT, so across also most sub segments. But mind you that we are not that big in Europe and the U. S. In Industrial and IoT. So we are actually relatively small player there.

Speaker 1

If you want to get a little bit of color, I would say especially Factory Automation appears to be particularly weak there in the West, in Europe and the U. S. The strength in China is more in the consumer IoT part, that 40% portion of our industrial IoT segment than in the core Industrial. It's not that core Industrial is particularly weak in China, but if you want to have color between the 2 in Q4 in China, then the stronger one is the consumer IoT, which I guess is also a bit of a seasonal strength into the Q4.

Speaker 6

Thank you so much. I guess as my follow-up, given kind of how you well manage the cycle today, there's a perception that you're gearing into the next upcycle maybe less than peers. So I was hoping you could speak to kind of where you think you are overall in terms of your sell in versus sell through end demand and if there's any kind of color around end markets to kind of give confidence that when things do recover that you do have that gearing cyclically?

Speaker 1

Yes. CJ, that I'm happy you're asking because I fail to understand the logic why we would come back less strong than others because we have failed somewhat better so far. And I fail to understand that because the only one reason why we are declining less this year, for example, with our guidance, you will see that NXP is like 5% down this year versus most of our direct peers more double digit down. The reason for that is that we hit the brakes earlier. It's not that we took anything away from the future.

Speaker 1

The only thing is we didn't do it in the 1st place. So we did a little less and a little softer in 2022 and 2023, which helped us to not have to hit the brakes so hard in 2024. But that puts us at the same starting point into any recovery. So that is our firm position here. And I think it all comes back down to what we discussed a little earlier in this call, which is the actual inventory position, which we have in the channel.

Speaker 1

And Bill said it, 1.9 months or about 8 weeks currently, which is still quite a bit away from the longer term target of 11 weeks or 2.5 months. So that we still have like I think $300,000,000 or so under the belt to be shipped in, which we don't do in the current environment. Again, we stay cautious. We could do, but we don't do it because we want to do it when it makes sense when the recovery happens. And on the direct customer inventory, I can of course only assume CJ, but I don't see a reason why we would be any worse or any better than typical peers.

Speaker 1

I mean, that's the treatment you get from the customers. We can control that, but I don't think we should be any different to our peers. So therefore, no, I don't think there is a reason to believe we have less of a recovery ahead of us. We actually feel good about this soft landing strategy, which in quotes only brought us down by 5% this year, thanks to cautious behavior the year before.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for next question. Our next question comes from the line of Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein Research. Your line is now open.

Speaker 9

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one, just around the auto, like 90 days ago, you were sort of suggesting to us that auto would be stronger into the end of the year because of company specific wins in radar and other things that we're going to be ramping. So part of the incremental weakness, I'm a little confused. Does that stuff just not ramp or did it ramp less than you thought or is it ramping later than you thought or what is it because it certainly doesn't seem to be enough to offset the other the broader weakness that we're seeing?

Speaker 9

Like what's going on with that?

Speaker 1

Yes, Stacy, absolutely. I can confirm we did say that half 2 would grow over half 1 driven by two factors. 1 was the anticipated recovery and the other one was company specific growth. We went very deeply into this and tried to find what happened and what didn't happen. The company specific growth, Stacy, is happening.

Speaker 1

I mean, it's a little softer because if they build a little less cars, then of course, you ramp also a little bit less. But the fundamental mechanisms of radar and S32 ramps are happening. We are actually growing quite nicely in the second half over the first half, but it is wiped away by the recovery not happening and on the contrary, a macro weakness, which is actually superseding all of that. So underneath the company specific drivers are intact. We will show a bit more detail on Thursday in our Investor Day in Boston.

Speaker 1

But it's not strong enough to overcome the macro weakness, Stacy.

Speaker 9

Got it. That's helpful. So my follow-up, I wanted to ask about gross margins. So I understand why they're coming down in Q4, I think. Now in Q1, you just suggested that revenues are probably down high single digits sequentially.

Speaker 9

It doesn't sound to me like mix is any better. Is it should I be thinking that the 57.5% just given those dynamics in the near term is likely not the trough? Like how should we be thinking about gross margins into Q1 just given the further revenue shortfall that we're seeing and

Speaker 6

any other drivers that are leading into the beginning of the year?

Speaker 2

Yes, Stacy, this is Bill. First, we're not going to guide Q1. But for modeling purposes, I would suggest when incorporating what Curt said about the seasonal adjustments to revenues, probably best to use a gross margin similar to those revenue levels at the past in the absence of a guide. Again, we just don't know, it's not fully ordered book yet. So mix will play a role, of course, but I'm just not that smart enough.

Speaker 2

But for modeling, I would just use something along those lines of during the last 3 years of those revenue.

Speaker 9

So where was that? I'd open up my model like where were gross margins last time revenues were? I don't

Speaker 8

know. I mean

Operator

Tracy, you can probably find it on our website.

Speaker 9

I'll dig it up myself, but thank you guys.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Francois Bovignes of UBS. Your line is now open.

Speaker 10

Thank you very much. My first question was on the pricing as we are at the end of the year where we understand you have some negotiation especially for your auto customers. And from what you understand, of course, given the challenging environment, the pricing is it's like an intense conversation, I should say, from many peers that I talked to about this. So I was wondering for NXP, how should we think about the pricing strategy or how you think the pricing is going to play out given this pressure maybe more than usual, especially into next year? That would be very helpful.

Speaker 10

And I have a follow-up after, if that's okay.

Speaker 1

Yes. Thanks, Francois. Absolutely. Let me confirm indeed 2 data points here. The one is and we talked about this through this year.

Speaker 1

We can now say with a lot of confidence that for this year pricing will have been neutral. So we will end the year with a flat pricing over the previous calendar year 2023. And from anything we can see today relative to next year's pricing across the entire company, so that's all the segments, all the channels together, it will probably be a low single digit ASP erosion, which is very typical, I would say. And that's also what we had anticipated. So after this whole swing, after COVID and the supply crisis where prices were up, they went into flat this year.

Speaker 1

And we assume that for next year, but also the years after, it is reasonable to assume we are back to a low single digit ASP erosion annually, which is very much in line by the way with what we had experienced in the years before the supply crisis and before COVID. And I know you hear different data points from different people, Francois, but mind you that we have a pretty differentiated portfolio. So a lot of our product is very far away from a catalog or commodity product, which gives us also in a period like now a relatively strong standing when it comes to pricing.

Speaker 10

That's very clear. Thank you, Kurt. And maybe a follow-up, it's a bit kind of a medium term, but still it impacts the short term is, given these challenges on the cycle, you have this China uncertainty with local players probably going after pricing, even if you have a sticky and strong differentiation as you described, Kurt, it's fair to assume maybe that the pricing environment and the oversupply that will take a bit longer to feel. How NXP tends to play in that role? I mean, the trade off between market share and gross margin, for example, would you consider like to exit some product as soon as you see something that doesn't play your way?

Speaker 10

Or cost saving program as well given the very long down cycle, is it something that you consider as well potentially? Just in our strategy.

Speaker 1

Yes. So absolutely. I mean one side of this equation, you all will learn more on Thursday this week when we will provide the new financial model with our new gross margin forecast, which obviously is a function or a consequence of that. But let me give you some color on the pricing. So we will not try and bid on price, Francois.

Speaker 1

Generally, I would say the way how Bill and I and the management team hope we are running the company is if we have to compete on price only, then we are in the wrong product category. So there is always a gray zone in between. Of course, we have to stay try and stay competitive. But if it really comes to a point that the only way, the only leverage we have to win would be price, then we would eventually exit that. And you have examples, I mean, we did this with powertrain microcontrollers in automotive, for example, where over a number of years after we had acquired Freescale, we have actually exited some of these sub segments and they have been heavily picked up by some of our peers.

Speaker 1

So yes, we are doing that or the banking card business years ago, there was a similar thing where in the end we don't try to compete on price. Now there is of course more to it, Francois, because it is also our cost competitiveness. We work maniacally on bringing our own costs down. And the more recent moves with the VSMC joint venture, for example, in Singapore and a few other moves we have are actually helping us to come at the same time to a competitive cost base. So I mean prices is also a function of the cost which we can achieve and also there we work very hard.

Speaker 1

But still ultimately, no, we are not the company which would sacrifice gross margin for short term market share. That's not the philosophy how we run the company.

Speaker 10

That's what that's told. Thank you, Kurt.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Josh Boulter of TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. I'm sorry for harping on gross margin, but it's the one that hit my inbox the most last night and this morning.

Operator

I guess if we zoom out,

Speaker 6

I mean your gross margins have been remarkably stable for like 10, 11 quarters and now are starting to see some leverage with revenue. Like can you, I guess maybe walk through why now? And it sounds like it's all maybe fixed cost coverage and utilization rates, and there's nothing going on with pricing, but the mix by end market isn't really changing. Anything within mix of products that we should be aware of? Or any other factors beyond, again, fixed cost coverage and purchase agreements that are really driving the sequential decline in gross margins in both the Q4 and I guess what you're implying for the March quarter, which is another leg down?

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure. Hey, Joshua, it's Vince. Yes, I mean, it's really just a function of the revenue levels over a fixed cost structure. Obviously, mix plays a role played a role in Q3 a bit and playing another role of some sort of it along with the lower revenues into Q4. And really the step down going into Q1, it will be the total revenue level, to be honest with you.

Speaker 2

There's not really anything else fundamentally different. It's just that, okay, now you have to rebalance the inventory a bit and so maybe you don't build as much goods and you have to adjust foundry and so forth. So, I know I will walk the team through the gross margin journey this upcoming Thursday. And again, I would say we've been quite resilient here compared to many of our peers because of that fluctuation of their revenues clearly have an impact to their gross margins and how they service their customers or stage inventory. So we feel pretty good of where we are.

Speaker 2

And again, it will be mostly a function of revenue over the near term. And then once we see the macro improve, we are very excited about some of the levers that Kurt just talked about more longer term to actually bring the gross margin above our high end of our current model

Speaker 6

today. Got it. Thank you. I appreciate the color there. For a follow-up, Kurt, I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks, there's a lot of volatility and changes going on at OEMs, in particular, in the West.

Speaker 6

I was wondering if you can maybe speak to your confidence and ignoring the inventory changes, have there been changes in the assumptions on content for at those customers? And in particular, I think the 5 nanometer S32 MP was supposed to ramp in sort of the 2026 timeframe. Is that still on progress? And I guess, how are you seeing engagements for your content on the software defined vehicle side? Thank you.

Speaker 11

Yes. Thanks,

Speaker 1

Josh. No change. We are actually very confident here and my leader for the auto business Jens will speak in much greater detail on Thursday about the traction of the SDV. But you will also see in the numbers that our SDV, S32 Growth Accelerated segment has outperformed our targets in spite of all the turmoil over the past 3 years. So we will show the numbers on Thursday.

Speaker 1

So that has great traction today. And we anticipate it will continue to have great traction. And that absolutely, of course, includes the S32N, which is the 5 nanometer vehicle computer and a lot of other products. What does happen, however, is we do see a continued non competitiveness of the Western OEMs versus Chinese OEMs. So I dare to say that from anything we can judge here, the pendulum swings more in favor of the Chinese car companies.

Speaker 1

That doesn't mean that the content per vehicle in Europe or the U. S. Comes down, but maybe the number of cars that they are building is coming down. So that's not a content question. It's more a unit production question, which is going probably in favor of China, which means next to our efforts to win with STV concepts across the board, we want to particularly be sure that we keep winning also in China, because that is where probably the bigger opportunity is going forward.

Speaker 2

Thank you. See you Thursday.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Toshiya Hari of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Speaker 11

Hi, good morning. Thank you so much for taking the questions. I have two quick ones on automotive. Just wanted to clarify, Kurt, the incremental weakness you're seeing in auto, is that at this point purely due to weakening end demand or are your Tier 1s bringing down their inventory levels as we speak as well? I think last quarter, you gave a range of something like 2 to 12 weeks in terms of how they're managing their inventory.

Speaker 11

Have you seen any changes to how they think about optimal inventory levels?

Speaker 1

It is unfortunately indeed both, Tricia. So they bring down the expected unit numbers, which they will produce. I said earlier that the SAAR for this year is now at minus 2%, in Europe, by the way, at minus 5% year over year. But because of that, the 2 to 12 weeks to share also become a lower number. That's the whole issue.

Speaker 1

So with the OEMs telling the Tier 1s that they need less parts, they forecast also a lower inventory target. So we get a double whammy. We suffer directly from the lower production numbers, but we also suffer from the overlaid lower inventory in absolute dollar terms, which is a function of that. So I would say the 2 to 12 weeks still stands, but against the lower revenue number. And that's why and there is also an emotional element like towards year end, when they have a poor outlook, they of course have no interest whatsoever to end the year on the too high inventory.

Speaker 1

So they rather go lower than higher. So yes, it is both. The one is overlaid the other, which of course on the other side of all of this is the starting point for a better recovery. But again, I don't want to go to the point when that recovery is. But in the end, it means once it grows, it grows even stronger.

Speaker 1

That's what we have the last three cycles out of that same situation.

Speaker 11

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And then as my follow-up, you've seen a mix shift in favor of hybrids at the expense of EVs, maybe not at the expense of EVs, but EV adoption has kind of stalled over the past several quarters. I think the industry consensus view is that over the long run, EVs do grow pretty materially. But as you talk to your partners and customers into 2025 and maybe early part of 2026, do you have a view on how hybrids perform or EVs perform relative to one another?

Speaker 11

And more importantly, what are the implications from a content perspective for you guys at NXP? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yes. So we don't have that much of a differential between hybrids and EVs, Because as you know, we don't have power discretes, which are much more sensitive to the difference between hybrids and full EVs. Our main thrust in the electrification space is the battery management systems. And they don't differ that much from a dollar content perspective between the 2. So therefore, we don't have a sharp eye on the specific mix change between hybrid and full EV.

Speaker 1

At the same time, I just want to slightly maybe adjust what you said. The overall XEV, it has slowed absolutely, but it is still going to be a 14% growth this year. So in units, ex EVs worldwide this year will grow by 14% over the year before, while the total SAAR is declining by 2%. So I mean that is still a very, very strong growth and it will be 37% of the total vehicle production this year. So 37% of all vehicles produced on the planet this year are actually ex EVs.

Speaker 1

So it is moderated from a pace perspective relative to what it was forecasted to be, but it is still growing very sharply and that continues to help us. And yes, the other half of your question, yes, we do continue that over the longer term, we do continue to believe it will grow. We think something like a 75% global XCV penetration by 2,030. That's kind of the data point which we have ahead of us.

Speaker 2

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for next question. Our next question comes from the line of William Stein of True Security. Your line is now open.

Speaker 3

Great. I'm just going to ask one if I can. The weaker than expected results in industrial and IoT and yet the strength in China, I'm a little bit confused because I always recall

Speaker 4

this

Speaker 3

segment to be very China and very China distribution focused. So maybe you can correct my understanding. Is it am I correct, but what's outside of China is very, very weak? Or is my recollection of the mix of this in terms of geo and channel, maybe stale? Thank you.

Speaker 1

It has a majority in China that is very true, so you don't miss call it. The U. S. And Europe is very weak. And what we did say is that about 80% of the whole industrial IoT business is going through the distribution channel.

Speaker 1

So maybe you mix this with the China exposure. Not all of that 80% is in China, but 80% of the total segment is going through the channel. And since we keep up our channel discipline and don't over ship there, we basically are really fully exposed to the end demand because we are down to our 8 weeks and we keep it flat there. So therefore, the strength in China cannot overcompensate the weakness in Europe and the U. S.

Speaker 1

Yet China as a whole, as I said before, will grow into Q4 in both the industrial and the auto segment, but the rest is just falling so much that it can't hold up.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Operator

Hey Marvin, we'll take one last question here today, please.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our last question comes from the line of Chris Stanley of Citi. Your line is now open.

Speaker 12

Hey, gang. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just two quick ones. So guys, can you just give us a sense of how much of your auto business is China? And then I'm sure you were at the Paris Auto Show as well.

Speaker 12

It seemed like there were dozens of China sort of EV companies and startups. If China gains a bunch of share in the EV market, what's the impact to NXP? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it indifferent?

Speaker 12

How would that be?

Speaker 1

So Chris, we don't break down the Chiyo by segment. But since auto is like 56% or 58% of NXP and we and you find in the Q, the total breakdown by Chiyo of NXP where China is between 35% and I think now even 37% with the strength in China. I mean, just assume that auto is probably not that far from that corporate average. And that means indeed, Chris, yes, with China getting stronger, and I can only echo what you say, there was a whole enchilada and great lineup of EVs coming out of China, which at some point will find their way worldwide. That is to the extent we can see it today a good thing for NXP because they are faster, they get faster innovation out, which means our newer products are coming into production much quicker than with Western OEMs.

Speaker 1

And if we keep up the pace and we put everything in motion to do that, this continues to be a positive for NXP.

Speaker 12

Great. Thanks, Kurt. I got to figure out a way to get that into my note on enchilada, Chinese enchilada VVs. And then just real quick, a follow-up for Bill. So Bill, your inventory days are basically in the 145 to 150 range for this year.

Speaker 12

Longer term, what's the goal there? Are we going to keep it at 150 while this weakness passes? And then where are we looking at like longer term there?

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. Over the next couple of quarters, I think we'll be at this level until we decide to replenish the channel. So that's about 3 weeks' worth. So that would naturally come down and pull down our internal inventory when we decide to go replenish. More longer term, we will be updating this on Thursday on what we think is the required inventory target to service our customer needs.

Speaker 2

So please be patient with me and wait 2 more days and you'll get the whole complete model of everything of both the P and L and our working capital and CapEx and so forth. So just please be patient with me there.

Speaker 12

Will do. Thanks guys.

Speaker 6

Thanks Chris.

Speaker 4

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn back to Curt Sievers, President and CEO for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Yes. Thanks, operator. Yes, we had to report today that we were taken by some surprise in the Q3 of an enhanced weakness in the automotive and industrial and U. S. And European markets, which is totally beyond our control.

Speaker 1

So what we do, we clearly maniacally try to control and will control what is in our powers. And I hope the guides and the early signs which we show for next year give you a feel for this. That does not take away anything from staying course on our soft landing strategy, which should set us up very well for the recovery whenever it happens. We are not in a position to make a judgment on that. But when it happens, we should be set up very well with the low inventory in the channel and the low inventory at our direct customers.

Speaker 1

Now at the same time, I hope to see many of you in our Investor and Analyst Day this week Thursday in Boston, where we will speak about our long term strategy and give you the long awaited update on our long term financial model. Can't wait to see you all. Thank you very much for your attention this morning. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
NXP Semiconductors Q3 2024
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