Infinera Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
March 6, 2024

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Christa, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Enfinera Corporation 4th Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Amitabh Posey, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Krishna. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Infinera's Q4 of fiscal 2023 conference call. A copy of the press release issued by Infinera today is available on the Investor Relations section of the website. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay from our website.

Speaker 1

Today's call will include projections and estimates that constitute forward looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements related to the matters referenced in the press release and current report on Form 8 ks that the company issued today and our financial outlook for the Q1 of 2024. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause Infinera's results to differ materially from management's current expectations. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various risk factors, including those set forth in our annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended on December 31, 2022, as filed with the SEC on February 27, 2023 and amended on February 29, 2024 and in our quarterly report on Form 10Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2023 as filed with the SEC on February 29, 2024, as well as subsequent reports filed with or furnished to the SEC from time to time. Please be reminded that all statements are made as of today, and Infinera undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this call. Today's conference call includes references to non GAAP financial measures, except for revenue, balance sheet items and cash flow from operations, which are each discussed on a GAAP basis.

Speaker 1

Pursuant to Reg G, we've provided a reconciliation of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release and investor slides sorry, there are no investor slides this quarter, each of which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. And finally, as a reminder, we'll allow for plenty of time for Q and A today, but we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, please. I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, David Hurd.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Amitabh. Good afternoon and thanks for joining us today. I'll begin with the highlights for our preliminary Q4 results and then turn the call over to Nancy to cover the preliminary financial details of our Q4 performance and outlook for the Q1. Overall, the Q4 was a strong quarter for us in which the midpoint of our preliminary revenue, gross margin and EPS ranges are all expected to come in above our outlook ranges. We delivered a book to bill of approximately 1 for the Q2 in a row and we generated over $50,000,000 in free cash flow.

Speaker 2

Furthermore, during the quarter, our GX systems portfolio performed strongly, landing new Tier 1 design wins with global service providers and ICPs. It now represents almost 50% of our expected annual product revenue. And in subsystems, we shipped our first 400 gig ICEX coherent pluggables vertically integrated into our own GX Metro platform. Combined, the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2023 marked a strong finish to the calendar year. While capital markets and macroeconomic conditions were challenging throughout 2023, we kept our heads down and believe we've delivered on our commitments to you.

Speaker 2

For the full year 2020 3, we expect to deliver our 6th consecutive year of revenue growth, expand gross margins to approximately 40%, expanded operating margins and increased operating profit in the double digit percentage range and delivered EPS in the 20% to 25% range, also consistent with what we committed to you in our Investor Day and that EPS is up at least 70% year over year. From a portfolio and customer perspective, we continue to build on the momentum of the last few years as we landed new customers during the year and successfully expanded into new market segments and geographies. Let me touch on a few of the 2023 highlights. 1st, we won new strategic deals with major service providers, including notable wins in the U. S, Europe, India, Australia and several Multinational Subsea Consortium.

Speaker 2

Our win rate in the metro remains strong with revenue in this segment growing to almost 50% of product revenue in 2023, an important part of our investment thesis and forward opportunity with the Huawei situation. 2nd, we had another banner year with U. S. Hyperscalers and delivered our 4th consecutive year of 30 plus revenue growth in this segment. We've increased our market share with hyperscalers by approximately 1,000 basis points over the last 4 years and our total exposure to them, including the indirect business that they drive through carrier service providers and Subsea consortia is approaching approximately 50% of our revenue.

Speaker 2

3rd, we exceeded $10,000,000 in bookings for our subsystem products and recognized initial revenue in the year. This was an important milestone for the company and consistent with the goals we communicated at our March Investor Day. To date, we've received purchase orders from 26 customers that span our entire subsystems portfolio. Additionally, membership in the XR forum continued to expand in 2023 and the new list of members included Lumentum and Arista. And 4th, we announced the commercial availability of our 400 gig XR pluggables and also shipped our 1st metro systems with our own vertically integrated pluggables in Q4.

Speaker 2

The use of pluggables in our metro systems will be a key driver of margin expansion getting into the back half of twenty twenty four. Our consistent performance over the past few years highlights that our strategy is working and that our portfolio is in the best shape it's ever been as evidenced by our win rates. Our key growth and profitability financial metrics are trending up into the right and we feel great about the underlying long term secular drivers in the business. However, in the near term, as we look at the first half of twenty twenty four, we're planning for a slow start to the year, consistent with what our peers in the industry are seeing and communicating. In Q1, in particular, we're experiencing a temporary low point in revenue and margin driven by 2 factors.

Speaker 2

First, from a revenue standpoint, approximately $35,000,000 of revenue has shifted out of the quarter with roughly $10,000,000 being recognized earlier in Q4 $25,000,000 of shippable backlog shifting from Q1 into future quarters. And second, from a margin standpoint, we expect gross margin to be approximately 400 basis points lower in Q1 due to a 300 basis point impact from the timing impact of higher line system shipments in Q1 associated with many of our global Tier 1 customer wins. This is ultimately a good news story in the back half of the year and for the longer term. And a 100 basis point impact from the combined effects of lower volume in Q1. The good news here is our commercial wins and strategic deployments give me confidence that we remain on path to deliver a full year of revenue growth and expanded margins in 2024, with gross margins expected to return to 40% plus starting in Q2.

Speaker 2

The even better news is both the pace and scale of our design wins across the portfolio are accelerating in this quarter, Q1. This is especially true for hyperscalers who we believe will continue to drive healthy levels of spending across the industry in the years ahead. Already in the 1st 60 days of 2024, we've achieved major hyperscaleinfluence strategic wins with our systems and subsystem solutions, including the following developments. First, you've seen from our press release this morning, we've announced a new line system that puts our portfolio under the GX family. We've already landed wins with 5 service providers and hyperscalers that are expected to lead to significant revenue and margins with follow on transponder sales and we have a strong pipeline of additional customers.

Speaker 2

2nd, we have won our first contract with a major hyperscaler for 800 gig 3 nanometer ZRZR plus pluggables. This win has the potential to be among the largest contracts for the company, scaling to 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars over a 3 year period beginning in 2025. This is the first of multiple contracts in this key market segment that we expect to land in 2024. These pluggable wins will drive additional volume through our U. S.-based semiconductor manufacturing assets and be incredibly be incrementally accretive to the financial model.

Speaker 2

3rd, influenced by traffic demands of hyperscalers, we continue winning Managed Optical Fiber Networks or MoFEN deals in India, the Middle East and Asia with at least 3 wins order to date in Q1 with 3 different hyperscalers. These private network builds are driven by hyperscalers and their preference for suppliers along with service providers across the globe. 4th, in addition to shipping our 1st metro systems with our own 400 gig pluggables, we're also qualifying our 400 gig ICEx pluggables with a major Tier 1 service provider and a major U. S. Cable MSO for applications that include single fiber bi di and business to business PON overlay.

Speaker 2

And 5th, we've invested in producing the first test chips for inside the data center applications driven by AI that will drive down power and leverage our U. S. Based semiconductor assets. While these days are early and architectures are still evolving, we believe our unique vertical integration and indium phosphide capabilities are competitive differentiators inside the data center. We look forward to talking to you on the progress as this further develops.

Speaker 2

Based on the stack up of those strategic wins, my confidence in our strategy, portfolio and execution is as high as it's ever been. Despite the short term inventory digestion customers are going through and the timing of the mix impacts of laying down new routes. In the long term, demand for bandwidth continues to grow as hyperscalers accelerate the rollout of artificial intelligence, machine learning workloads and service providers drive fiber deeper into networks. We believe we're uniquely positioned to gain with these customer segments. We look forward to diving deeper into our product and technology strategy at this year's Optical Fiber Communications Industry Show in San Diego, California on March 27.

Speaker 2

And as I close today, I'd like to thank the Infinera team for another solid quarter of execution and results and their continued commitment to our customers and one another. I'd also like to thank our partners, customers and shareholders for their continued support. I couldn't feel better about our strategic position and I believe we remain well positioned to deliver our 7th consecutive year of revenue growth, expand margins by approximately 200 basis points and deliver EPS growth of at least 25% in 2024. I'll now turn the call over to Nancy to cover the preliminary financial results of the quarter and our Q1 outlook. Nancy?

Speaker 3

Thanks, David. Good afternoon, everyone. I will begin by addressing our Q3 filings and then cover our preliminary unanticipated results, outlook for the Q1 of 2024. For your reference, we have included a GAAP to non GAAP reconciliation of our preliminary financials and outlook in our press release to assist with my commentary. As a reminder, any financial commentary provided today for Q4 'twenty three or the full fiscal 2023 period are based on our preliminary non GAAP results.

Speaker 3

As most of you are aware, we filed our Q3 20 3 Form 10 Q on February 29. This represented a tremendous effort by the Infinera team and our auditors over the past few months given the intensive and time consuming nature of the matters under review. I want to emphasize that despite the delayed review process, there were no adjustments to prior period financials. Our results for Q3 were revenue of $392,000,000 gross margin of 41.9 percent operating income of $30,300,000 and diluted EPS of $0.08 all of which exceeded the midpoint of our original outlook range. Since our efforts over the past few months have been directed toward completing the work necessary to file our Q3 'twenty three results and other related SEC filings, our final results for Q4 'twenty three and fiscal year 'twenty three have been delayed.

Speaker 3

As a result, we are sharing preliminary unaudited ranges today. We currently expect to have our year end audit completed and file our fiscal year 2023 10 ks in the next 5 to 7 weeks or about mid April and plan to be back on our normal cadence in Q1. Turning to our performance in the Q4. I am pleased with the strong finish we had to the year. The midpoint of our preliminary range of $435,000,000 to $452,000,000 is expected to be at or above our outlook range.

Speaker 3

This quarterly performance was primarily driven by strength in the Americas and with ICPs or hyperscalers. Geographically, we derived over 65% of our Q4 revenue from domestic customers, a level higher than normal given the strength at U. S. Hyperscalers and service provider customers. We had one ICP customer that accounted for percent of our revenue in the quarter.

Speaker 3

Turning to gross margin. We expect the midpoint of our Q4 preliminary gross margin range of 39% to 41% to be above that in our outlook range and up on a year over year basis. Compared to the prior year, gross margin in the quarter benefited from higher vertical integration, continued relief in supply costs and ongoing cost improvements. Overall, I am encouraged by the trend in 2023 with gross margin expected to approach 40% for the year and be up approximately 300 basis points for the year. Preliminary operating margin of 5.7% to 8.3% is expected to be within our outlook range, while operating expenses of $145,000,000 to $147,000,000 are expected to be slightly above our outlook range.

Speaker 3

Our Q4 operating expenses included approximately $3,000,000 of incremental spend as a result of the extended financial review I referred to earlier. We expect this level of incremental spend to continue through Q1 and partially into Q2. In Q4, we also executed on a tax structuring initiative that allowed us to true up a $7,000,000 tax benefit for current year and prior years. The resulting preliminary diluted EPS is expected to be $0.07 to $0.13 with the midpoint representing above our outlook range. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow items.

Speaker 3

We ended the quarter with approximately $174,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents. We generated over $50,000,000 of free cash flow in the quarter and we benefited from higher net income, the partial work down of our inventory and an improvement in shipment linearity. Let me now turn to the outlook for the Q1 of 2024. As David mentioned, like the rest of the industry, we are expecting a slow start to the year as our customers continue to work down their excess inventory and manage CapEx prudently in the short term. Therefore, specific to Q1, we expect revenue to be in the range of $320,000,000 to 3 $50,000,000 including the impact of approximately $35,000,000 of revenue that shifted out in the quarter.

Speaker 3

Gross margin to be in the range of 36% to 38%. This lower margin includes a 400 basis point margin impact primarily from higher line system shipments with fill expected in the following quarters and from lower volumes in Q1. Operating expenses to be in the range of $143,000,000 to $147,000,000 including approximately $3,000,000 of incremental expenses related to support our fiscal 2023 audit and an operating margin loss of 8.5% to $0.11 Below the operating loss line, we assume approximately $8,000,000 for net interest expense and approximately $4,000,000 for taxes. Finally, we are anticipating a net loss per share of $0.18 to $0.10 assuming a basic share count of approximately 232,000,000 shares. As you heard from us this afternoon, overall, we feel great about our strategy and the strength of our portfolio, as evidenced by the pace and scale of recent design wins across both our systems and subsystems portfolios.

Speaker 3

In the 1st 60 days of the quarter, I am encouraged by our win rate deployment of Line Systems setting us up for future margin expansion. I'm encouraged by the growth of our sales funnel and the margins on our bookings, which I believe puts us on a path to drive revenue growth of 2% to 3% for the full year and deliver on our 2nd our 7th consecutive year of revenue growth expand gross margin by approximately 200 basis points for the year and earnings per share expansion with EPS growth of at least 25% in 2024. As I close today, I would like to reiterate that I'm pleased with our '23 performance for the full year. We hit several important milestones in the year with gross margin approaching 40%, bookings exceeding $10,000,000 for our subsystems products vertical integration in the mid-fifty percentile for the company and we proactively strengthened our balance sheet. Looking ahead, we remain laser focused on continuing to accelerate revenue growth, drive earnings per share expansion and generate cash flow in the quarters and years ahead.

Speaker 3

We plan to file our fiscal year 10 ks in the next five to 7 weeks, as I said earlier, and we are back on track to file our Q1 10 Q on our normal cadence. In closing, I would like to take the time to thank the Infinera team, especially my finance team for their continued commitment to innovation and execution as well as to our partners, customers and shareholders for your continued patience, cooperation and support. Christa, I'd now like to open the line up for questions.

Operator

Thank Your first question comes from the line of Mike Giobbe from Rosenblatt Securities. Please go

Speaker 4

ahead. Great. Thank you. Can you start by giving us more color on this major hyperscale win, the 3 nanometer ZR Plus 800 gs pluggable, just more color on what that application is, what that product is? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Sure.

Speaker 2

Hey, Mr. Ron Johnson, do you want to take that?

Speaker 5

Yes. Thanks, David. Yes, Mike. So we had a closer contract with a major hyperscaler basically to deliver product early 2025 with revenue expectation in 2025. And the application is an 800 gig PCS pluggable that would go into multiple different form factors, QSFP, OSFP, CFP2 and provide capability to optimize their power per bit, their performance and their cost per bit.

Speaker 5

And this will be interoperable in multiple parts of their network, effectively addressing all of their terrestrial applications. So in short point to point, metro peering applications, even in long haul applications. It's an opportunity to drive lower power, lower cost for all of their terrestrial network.

Speaker 2

Hey, Mike. Financially, it's from a contract standpoint, it is a it's kind of the largest contract potential that the company has dealt with in its history. So it really kind of helps launch the subsystem business that we talked about going forward with the kind of volumes that really spin the fab nicely for cost reduction that will help across the portfolio.

Speaker 4

Okay, great. And now it sounds like it's, DCI application, more than a datacom inside the data center application. Correct. Is that correct? Correct.

Speaker 6

Okay.

Speaker 2

Correct. Great. I would just say it's outside the data center, correct.

Speaker 4

Yes. Okay. And then just my other question is, I guess just some color on gross margins as we move through the year. It sounds like you're calling for 200 basis points of gross margin improvement this year, if that's correct, but we're starting with a bad quarter in 1Q for some specific reasons. So we understand how things get a lot better later in the year.

Speaker 2

Yes. Look, the amount of line systems that we're laying out in the Q1 and the cost of that, it's significant. It's just a heavy, heavy mix, which bodes well for the second half being heavy. So while we start out, we look at our inbound bookings and their standard margin rates and we look at the forecast for the remainder of the year and the fill on those line systems as well as additional line systems we still intend to deploy and it gives us comfort around that 200 basis point, roughly 200 basis point improvement year over year just like we committed to last year and delivered year.

Speaker 1

And the year.

Speaker 2

And the

Speaker 4

year. All right. Sounds good, Ben. Thanks a lot. Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson from Needham and Company. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Great. So I was hoping you could help us bridge to 25% EPS growth on 2% to 3% revenue growth and a nice but still modest 200 basis point margin expansion. Is it a function of something below the line? Is it a function of very tight OpEx costs or declining OpEx costs. How do we bridge to that?

Speaker 3

Yes. I think it's a combination of all of those, right? It's the growth rate on the top line, the expanding 200 basis points of margin, right? So knowing we're approaching 40%, I think approaching 42% for the full year. And then we will be certainly keeping our operating expenses in control.

Speaker 3

You'll see probably 2 areas. Think of it in the $15,000,000 increase for the year in total, some of which we talked about in terms of expenses on the audit and some catch up we have to do in the first half, but also the work that we're doing in R and D in particular and really investing in that growth. And as David mentioned, some of the chip development that we're doing inside the data center will you'll see a small step up there. But net net, it gets us into that 25% growth in EPS.

Speaker 1

Hey, Alex, if I could just remind you in 2023, right, if you look at contemplated ranges, we'll go 2% to 3% and EPS will be up over 70%. So the leverage is there in the morning.

Speaker 6

Just to be clear, what is the drag that you're assuming relative to the accounting issues in the numbers in both the Q4 and in the 24?

Speaker 3

Sure. It's about $3,000,000 in Q4. It's about the same $3,000,000 roughly in Q1 and then it should temper from that in Q2 and get back to normal.

Speaker 6

I see. Thank you so much. Sure.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Alex.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of George Notter from Jefferies. Please go

Speaker 4

ahead. Hey, George.

Speaker 7

Hi, guys. How's everybody doing? Thanks very much for the question. I guess I wanted to ask about help me understand sort of the cadence on the top line here, right? So, really strong Q4, big step down in Q1.

Speaker 7

I would imagine there's a bit of seasonality here. But I think the narrative is really around excess inventory. And I guess as I think about it, the excess inventory issue has been around for a few quarters now. You guys have been talking about them for a few quarters. Sure.

Speaker 7

So why a strong Q4 and a step down in Q1? And how does that mesh with this sole narrative around working off excess inventory? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. No, it's a good very good question. Remember that when I talk our exposure as well, I think most people think of the service provider exposure in our business and think the likes of Verizon, AT and T, BT, Vodafone. If I just took those 4 as an example, that's probably on the top less than 5% of our revenue in 2023. And when I look at our exposure from the web scalers or ICPs as we call them, both direct, I think in Q4 it was probably approaching 40%.

Speaker 2

For the year it's probably a third of our business. When I take into account these managed fiber optic deals that they're influencing, it's close to 50%. So when we looked into Q1, we had some amount of shippable backlog between a few customers that moved from Q1 just scheduling wise out into Q2 and Q3. And we were able to accomplish about $10,000,000 worth of projects in Q4. So that does explain part of the step down.

Speaker 2

We've been winning these long term strategic deals in quarter, but the book ship business has been a bit slower as some of our customers as everybody is aware of are continuing to burn down inventory, which we think is about the end of the story as we get out of the first half. And they're also being a bit cautious on setting their budgets. And Q1 is always in our industry and for our company is always our toughest quarter And there we go.

Speaker 7

Got it. Was excess inventory an issue then in Q4 as well? Yes.

Speaker 2

I mean, in terms of raw bookings, we did well in Q3 and Q4 having a book to bill of about 1 for those quarters, but it has not been a loose environment in terms of those dollars. It is beginning segment by segment to be able to wear off and that's why I kind of like our exposure on the ICP front. And I hate to say it, I want more positive business with customers that I mentioned that are major Tier 1 service providers, but they just they're not as significant of an impact to our business.

Speaker 4

Got you. Okay.

Speaker 7

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Upside. Thanks, George.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Simon Leopold from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thank you for taking the question. Just for David, if you could clarify, I think you made the point that direct plus indirect sales to hyperscale or IPPs was close to 50%. But what was the value of the direct sales to hyperscalers again?

Speaker 2

Yes, it's about 30 think of a third of our product revenues in 2023. And in Q4, it was approaching 40%. So I guess one of

Speaker 4

the things I'm trying to sort of square here is the full year growth outlook of 2% to 3%. I would assume we'd expect follow through from that hyperscale group. So they're growing much better than that 2% to 3%, which means something else is declining. You have not guided by vertical in the past, but maybe if you could help us unpack sort of the relative vertical movements to sort of square that?

Speaker 2

Yes. Look, I think the hyperscalers, if you look at the average CapEx, are expected to grow in the double digits still in 2024. Again, we're winning the line systems, the new line systems with both hyperscalers and with CSPs. They will be laying those out based on wins that we just had over the last 60 days, they probably they don't probably, they lay those out in the back half of the year and begin to fill. So you're right, some of the we expect continued strength in hyperscale, The wholesalers are continuing to do well.

Speaker 2

Subsea is continuing to do well. I think you're going to see a lot of these Tier 1 wins that we have just not have the scale until we get into 2025.

Speaker 4

Great. And you also mentioned very significant share gains over a period of number of years with this group of customers. Who have you been displacing? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes, that's a good question. I'm sure it depends on the situation and you probably know better than I do. I'm not going to I won't comment into our particular competitors business.

Speaker 4

Appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 2

All right. Thanks, Simon.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Meta Marshall from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, Meta. Thank you.

Speaker 8

Hey, this is Karan on for Meta. Hey, I mean, I just wanted to double click on sort of the $25,000,000 that got pushed out into future quarters. Any maybe further detail on why that was pushed out? Or was it just simply timing of contracts? And then the point you made on sort of Q4 still being impacted by inventory digestion, I guess just where do you feel we are in terms of service provider inventory digestion and sort of what you're expecting across the year with that?

Speaker 2

Yes, on the $25,000,000 no, I mean that's it from backlog. So it's just scheduling in terms of timing of people putting projects in whether it's into a data center or whether it's out into a network. And that happens from time to time. Unfortunately, it happened in Q1 as people were laying out resources and our expectations to where our customers were. The second part of the question is, look, I think we have been saying consistently that we thought this year the front half would be softer than the back half because from our not from analyst reports from our direct contact with both CSPs, wholesalers, ICPs, cable operators, we do think as we get into the back half and look, based on some of the infrastructure wins we're getting now, we believe that the spend and the inventory situation frees up in the back half.

Speaker 2

And that's been consistent industry commentary, I believe, if you talk through the value chain in the industry. That

Speaker 6

makes a lot

Speaker 8

of sense. And then maybe moving on to sort of operating margins, Q1 coming down a little bit, but I guess just how you're thinking about operating margins throughout the year? And maybe just in the back half of the year, just how much of a benefit you think the pluggables opportunity can be to margins? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. On the operating margin, right, you should see consistent improvement kind of quarter to quarter to quarter through the year as you see the revenue and the gross margin step up. As I mentioned, you'll see some tapering off in terms of the unique spend we're doing right now within G and A. In terms of gross margin relative to subsystems, it's going to be it'll be modest, right? There's not going to be a big step up that you'll see in 2024.

Speaker 3

But really, as David mentioned, with some of the wins that we see, it's a 25 benefit to us as we start to see that revenue really step up. And the opportunities that we're seeing are giving us more and more confidence, in particular, in terms of the funnel that we see. And then as I mentioned in my statement earlier, the margin on those bookings and the improvements that we're seeing there as well.

Speaker 2

Yes, I would say just real quick, let's differentiate between two things there. So the external sales of pluggables like to the web scaler that Ron went through, very exciting. We don't expect that to positively impact margin because that's a 25 impact for us. The biggest impact is what we talked about before to the 200 basis points of margin improvement is really remember that huge increase in metro that we're getting. This year we'll now be able to integrate our own plugs into that.

Speaker 2

And so that will be a margin benefit leading to that 200 basis point improvement

Speaker 4

for internal consumption. Okay. Excellent. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dave Kang from B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thank you. First question is regarding your vertical integration. Just wondering if you can provide what that was and how we should think about it Q1 and beyond?

Speaker 3

Yes. For the year, it was in the mid-50s. So and we should continue to see that expand particularly in 2024 as we just talked about with Metro coming online.

Speaker 4

Correct. Got it. And then on your outlook for the year, how should we think about first half versus second half? Should we thinking about like something like maybe forty-sixty or even more back end loaded?

Speaker 1

Yes. I would say probably very similar to 22, so maybe 43, 57, 42, 58 kind of just to be safe. I mean, we typically tend

Speaker 4

to be 48%, 50%. Was that roughly on the top? Roughly.

Speaker 1

We typically tend to be 47%, 48%, but this year, I would say it's more like 22% played out.

Speaker 4

Got it. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Thanks Dave.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Samik Chatterjee from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe if I can start with the first one to sort of ask you to talk a bit more about your outlook on a more geographic basis. I know you mentioned India and the wins there. You mentioned Huawei as sort of one of the drivers of the growth outlook that you have.

Speaker 9

I understand most of the ICP probably sort of will be reported eventually in the North America business. But when you think about EMEA and India as a region, how should we think about sort of what you're expecting in terms of growth in those two areas? And I have a follow-up.

Speaker 2

No, it's good. It's good. So obviously, again, very highly indexed on the ICP strength. Actually, Alex Henderson brought this up, I think, 4 quarters ago about when you do the subsea, are you getting the terrestrial benefit? We're just beginning to see that.

Speaker 2

So I would tell you India and Asia.

Speaker 1

Hey, Salik, I think we're getting some static from your end, Salik.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 2

That's better. Thank you. Perfect. Thanks. Again, I think India and Asia, we're seeing nice wins again already in the 1st 60 days with 3 different content providers doing those landed deal.

Speaker 2

So we do expect the Asia Pacific region, we've had some new leadership there, some new staffing there doing a great job. The funnel is full. In the Middle East, we see big opportunities and are winning big opportunities both in subsea and terrestrial in the Middle East. So that's been a nice growth area for us. I think you won't see it in the numbers in 2024, but you will see it in the wins in Europe with Tier 1 service providers.

Speaker 2

We are winning in Europe. I expect to see that really scale in terms of the numbers in 2025. And again, as I said in the prepared remarks, on the 400 gig pluggable front, we have North America cable providers that is we have a great application of that software defined pluggable for fiber limited areas for bidirectional as well as PON overlay that allows them to use the same fiber. So I expect again design wins there and then for cable in 2025 to become a nice growth area for us because it's been way too small for us historically. All of those are consistent with what we said in our March Analyst Day in terms of concentrating on these Mofin deals on Asia Pacific, on India in particular and on the Middle East.

Speaker 9

Got it, got it. And sorry if they are still getting static, I apologize for that. But just maybe a quick follow-up for Nancy. You're starting the Q1 at lower gross margin than we envisioned. Obviously, you're keeping the full year guide that implies you're exiting at a higher run rate than we thought.

Speaker 9

So maybe any color on where do you envision exiting for the year in terms of gross margins? And what does that sort of tell us in terms of vertical integration rate up to where you probably sort of imagined exiting the year? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. So I think you're right, right. It will scale up as we go through the year and we'll have to exit the year close to mid-40s in order to hit the 200 basis point growth. And that is, as we mentioned, very much tied to Metro VI as well as the growth of our VI in general. So we should expect to be in the 60s in 2024 in order to hit that 200 basis point improvement.

Speaker 9

Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Reuben Roy from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, Reuben. Hi. Thank you. Hey, David. I had a

Speaker 2

question on the 800 gig. Congrats on the first of, I'm sure, many wins there.

Speaker 4

How are you thinking about that from sort

Speaker 2

of the perspective of the rest of the business?

Speaker 10

Meaning, is that incremental or do

Speaker 2

you expect any impact to the systems business, any color there for 2025? The good news is the penetration of that in terms of the dollar value. 1, the growth rates we see are pretty tremendous, again, driven by AI and ML with the web scalers that we're currently in front of for 800 gig and we don't expect this to be the last. This is the first and very, very large. 2nd is we weren't in a lot of these this potential spend for the web scalars.

Speaker 2

So this is kind of net new for us, for the business. So it really doesn't cannibalize anything we've had. Did I get that right, Ron?

Speaker 5

Yes, I agree.

Speaker 2

Great. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the detail. And then I

Speaker 4

just want to follow-up on that.

Speaker 2

And just to be clear, Ron would have disagreed if he disagreed. He's not just saying that.

Speaker 4

Excellent.

Speaker 2

Okay. So either for you or

Speaker 10

Ron, Dave, you did mention a little bit about the 400 gig and

Speaker 2

the cable MSOs, etcetera. But just in terms of how we should think about the ramps of 800 versus 400, it seems like 800 could be sort of faster ramps, bigger ramps versus longer tail, longer cycle for 400 gig, am I thinking about that right? You are. So I think 800, it's Costco buying, buying in huge swaps, huge chunks, defined product, defined application because it's ZR, ZR plus The 400 gig one will consume it and continue to increase our consumption year over year in the metro for our own product. And then for these applications, again, I mentioned we're certifying with the North American cable, but we're also certifying with another global Tier 1 for an application.

Speaker 2

Look, because it's software defined, it ties into their network operations. They just take a little bit longer, but I think you'll see a very long life cycle for that given the differentiation and the fact that as Ron said, it's a 3 legged stool, drive lower cost per bit, drive lower power per bit and drive the agility up. And that 400 gig plug will allow you to move in 25 gig increments, only power which you need. And that's why we won some green awards, for example, in Europe with that product. So yes, longer life cycle, sorry.

Speaker 4

Got it. Understood. Thank you, David. Thanks, Yaron.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Christian Schwab from Craig Hallum Capital. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Given the headwinds that we're seeing structurally in the industry this year, but the big design wins in hyperscale that we talked about and further to come. I know it's only March of 'twenty four, but the strength that you were talking about in 'twenty five, you should be able to grow the top line double digit plus in calendar 'twenty five, right?

Speaker 2

That was a trap. Well set. Well set. Well, look, certainly these are very, very large opportunities. You're right, it's March of 2024.

Speaker 2

I'd be silly to give 2025 guidance. But I think what we said prior is past this inventory digestion period, we're going to continue to put our heads down and get design wins, continue to drive margin improvement and EPS expansion. And if you remember our Analyst Day, we talked about we think steady state in the business once you get through these externalities that 8% to 12% was the kind of growth rate we said. This gives us great comfort both in that and as well as in our business model from a financial perspective in terms of margin and EPS. But I'm not setting a number for $25,000,000

Speaker 11

No, understood. Thank you for that. And then my last question is, we've all been kind of waiting for CHIPS Act money to be released. Do you have an update of where you think you're positioned in that process?

Speaker 2

Here's what I'd tell you. Again, I think we've been very diligent over the last couple of years and are very well positioned, but we're not allowed by actual rules of the CHIPS Act to give us status on where we're at there. What I'm confident is we're an excellent fit for the CHIPS Act and that as they go to push awards out that should be something we see in the '25 timeframe as well in terms of the impact to the business if we are to be awarded. Great. Thanks, Chris, for my questions.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson from Needham and Company. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Sneaking in with a second one.

Speaker 2

There you go.

Speaker 6

Thanks for letting me in. So I was hoping we could go back to this contract that you've got with this hyperscaler. 3 years out, dollars 100,000,000 annual run rate, I would think that the initial shipments are in the 1st year that would be fairly low and then it would ramp probably double to say $50,000,000 and then hit that $100,000,000 Is that kind of the cadence of that ramp $25,000,000 $50,000,000 $100,000

Speaker 2

No, I have what we said in the prepared remarks was the 3 year contract is worth 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars. So we believe it will start shipping in 2025 with this particular customer And yes, get more intense in 'twenty six, 'twenty seven and the beginning of 'twenty eight and then we'll be on the new with that particular customer, you go from the 800 gig pluggable to potentially a 1.6 t pluggable from there. So no, it's the number is much larger.

Speaker 6

So it's larger than $25,000,000 $50,000,000 to $100,000,000

Speaker 2

Yes, it's 100 of 1,000,000 over a 3 year period. Not like 1 or 2 or I don't want to get too specific, but it's the largest that we've seen.

Speaker 6

And just to be clear, that's all pluggables. Is there additional equipment sales associated with that? Or is it more narrow than that?

Speaker 2

So with a lot of these deals, what I think you will see with a lot of deals in the future is you will see us get a pluggable win for the pluggable and then we will have to compete independently for the platform that that goes in, the GX platform and line system that that goes in. So in many cases, we have the opportunity to not only win the pluggable, but also win the platform that that goes in. So there has that doesn't even count that dollar impact.

Speaker 4

Ron, anything to add there?

Speaker 5

The only thing I would add is that it's extremely compelling, right, for them to ramp this quickly because it's a significant improvement in cost per bit and power per bit for their network.

Speaker 6

So the other question I had for you is, you mentioned the managed optical lines that you're winning in some service providers, particularly India. Can you talk a little bit about the mechanics and the economics of that type of transaction where you're actually in line with that business?

Speaker 2

Ron, do you want to take that?

Speaker 5

Yes. So you're referring to managed optical fiber networks and these are effectively opportunities where we work with the end customer who is a hyperscaler and a service provider who is providing the actual service. And then we agree on a bespoke network for them, right, to consume and to use all on their own for their own specific application particular country. And from an economic perspective, it's very much like any other service provider win, where there's a line system component, there's services, there's transponders or pluggables depending on the application. And it looks very similar to any big Tier 1 service provider win.

Speaker 6

So it's not a high management maintenance contract piece, it's just Classic Systems?

Speaker 2

Classic Systems with the maintenance contract. And the good news is we see the end demand because we're working with the web scaler. So they typically tend to build them bigger because they're looking to interconnect to data centers and terrestrial networks.

Speaker 6

Great. Got it. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Alex.

Operator

And that concludes our question and answer period. I will now turn it back to Chief Executive Officer, David Heard for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Hey, thank you. 2023 was another great year for us. We delivered on our commitments that we made during our Analyst Day, and I would say what is a pretty rough landscape. Through Q4 of 2023, we have met or exceeded our outlook in 15 out of the last 16 quarters. Our portfolio is in the best shape it's been.

Speaker 2

We're winning new customers globally with less than 25% of our products from legacy systems. I mean, it's a dramatic shift from where we were 3, 4 years ago. While the front half of the year is starting off a bit sluggish, which we called out last year as this inventory burns out. We are winning some major design wins in both systems and subsystems that build our confidence and confidence in the back half recovery and our ability to grow revenue, expand share and increase margins and EPS. So we appreciate the support of our customers, employees and shareholders.

Speaker 2

We're now going to get back to work and continue executing a very sound investment strategy and focus on continued EPS expansion. Thank you all and have a nice afternoon or evening.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Infinera Q4 2023
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