Analog Devices Q4 2022 Earnings Report

Analog Devices EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.73
• Consensus EPS: $2.58
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.15
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.73

Analog Devices Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.25 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.16 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$90.76 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +38.80%

Analog Devices Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2022
• Date: 11/22/2022
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, November 22, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Analog Devices (NASDAQ:ADI) (NASDAQ: ADI) is a global semiconductor company that designs and manufactures high-performance analog, mixed-signal, power-management and radio-frequency integrated circuits. Its technologies help convert real-world signals—such as temperature, pressure, sound, motion and light—into data that electronic systems can process and use.

The company offers data converters, amplifiers, power-management products, sensors, embedded processors, connectivity solutions and other semiconductor components. These products are used in industrial automation, instrumentation, healthcare, automotive systems, communications infrastructure, consumer electronics and aerospace and defense applications.

Founded in 1965, Analog Devices serves customers worldwide through operations and sales channels spanning North America, Europe and Asia. The company expanded its product portfolio and market reach through the acquisition of Maxim Integrated in 2021. Vincent Roche has served as Analog Devices’ president and chief executive officer since 2013.

Analog Devices Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Analog delivered a record Q4 with $3.25 B revenue and adjusted EPS of $2.73, driving fiscal 2022 revenue to $12 B (+26% YoY) and EPS to $9.57 (+50%).
• They returned 100% of free cash flow in FY 22—$4.6 B via share repurchases and dividends—while ending Q4 with $1.5 B cash and a net leverage below 1×.
• FY 22 investments included $1.7 B in R&D and $700 M in CapEx, enabling early sampling of the new Apollo high-speed signal-processing platform and plans to expand swing manufacturing capacity to ~70% of revenue.
• The design-win pipeline grew over 10%, led by automotive energy systems (BMS opportunity pipeline nearing $4 B) and significant wins in industrial automation, aerospace RF modules, and 5G radio systems, with cross-sell synergies targeting $1 B.
• For Q1 FY 23, Analog guides revenue of $3.15 B±$0.1 B with industrial flat, auto up slightly, communications down mid-single digits and consumer down double-digits, reflecting a cautious yet optimistic stance amid macro uncertainty.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, welcome to the Analog Devices fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call, which is being audio webcast via telephone and over the web. As a reminder, this event is being recorded. I'd now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mr. Michael Lucarelli, Vice President of Investor Relations and FP&A. Sir, the floor is yours.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thank you, Betsy. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining our fourth quarter and fiscal 2022 conference call. With me on the call today are ADI CEO and Chair, Vince Roche, and ADI CFO, Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah. For anyone who missed the release, you can find it in relating financial schedules at investor.analog.com. Now on to the disclosures. The information we're about to discuss includes forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties as further described in earnings release and our periodic reports and other materials filed with the SEC. Our results could differ materially from the forward-looking information as these statements reflect our expectations only as of the day of this call. We undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by law. Our comments today will also include non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude special items.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

When comparing our results to our historical performance, special items are also excluded from prior periods. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures and additional information about our non-GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release. With that, I'll turn over to ADI CEO and Chair, Vince. Vince.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Thank you, Mike. Good morning to you all. Well, I'm really extremely pleased to share that we delivered another record quarter capping off what was a banner year for ADI. Our fourth quarter revenue was $3.25 billion, and adjusted EPS was $2.73, and both at the high end of our outlook. For the fiscal year, revenue was $12 billion, up an impressive 26% year-over-year on a combined basis. Our industrial, automotive, and communications markets delivered all-time high revenues, and our consumer business continued to grow despite industry-wide weakness. Adjusted EPS increased by nearly 50% to $9.57. We also delivered on our commitment to return 100% of free cash flow to shareholders in 2022, returning $4.6 billion through share repurchases and dividends.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

These results not only exemplify the strength of our portfolio, but also our deep customer focus and the hard work of our employees to fortify ADI's brand. To that end, in my recent conversations with customers, the message has been very clear. While we're not immune to supply disruptions, ADI's service, quality, and support throughout this challenging time continues to be outstanding. Importantly, this sentiment is shared by customers of all sizes and across all markets. Our customers are calling upon ADI to engage in longer-term, more strategic collaborations to develop solutions that further empower the intelligent edge. To ensure we remain at the forefront of technological advancements and customer service, we invested $1.7 billion in R&D and $700 million in CapEx in FY 2022. Let me start with R&D.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Our investments are targeted at strengthening our foundational high-performance analog franchises, as well as moving up the stack to create more complete solutions for our customers. A prime example is our Apollo platform, which we previewed at our Investor Day in April. Apollo is a flexible high-speed signal processing platform with unmatched levels of functionality, integration, and performance, making it ubiquitous for all customers, but especially appealing to those in the broad market. During the quarter, we began sampling this innovative platform with our aerospace, communications, and instrumentation customers, and their feedback has been extremely positive. Turning now to the operations side. Over the last year, we invested a record amount of CapEx to increase our manufacturing output. In 2023, we are once again investing aggressively in our U.S. and European factories to significantly expand our capacity.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

These investments will create a more flexible and cost-effective hybrid manufacturing model by increasing our swing capacity to around 70% of revenue in the coming years. Our R&D and supply chain investments are essential to support our design win pipeline, which expanded by more than 10% in 2022. This growth was led by our automotive energy systems and digital healthcare businesses. Notably, our growth in automotive was underpinned by battery management systems or BMS, which now has an opportunity pipeline nearing $4 billion. This year, eight new manufacturers designed in our BMS solutions, including two that plan to utilize our wireless platform. Our strong leadership position, combined with increasing EV penetration globally, gives me great confidence in our future growth prospects. Looking now at some selected design activity in the quarter.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

In industrial automation, we were designed into an advanced diagnostic system that monitors machine health at a global supplier for energy exploration. Our system solution approach enables an approximate 50% reduction in size and lowers wiring costs meaningfully. In aerospace and defense, we won RF module programs at multiple defense prime contractors. Our modules integrate hundreds of components to simplify the design process for our customers, while increasing our content from hundreds to thousands of dollars per system. In industrial instrumentation, we secured wins at two market leaders of next generation high voltage testers for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. The combination of our high voltage processes and precision technology enables us to deliver accurate, reliable, and efficient testing required to scale the manufacturing of these systems. Lastly, in communications, we expanded our leadership in 5G radio systems with our transceiver portfolio, winning additional share at key suppliers.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

These new wins position us even better as 5G networks roll out globally, especially in India, and O-RAN begins to proliferate. Importantly, our design pipeline is beginning to benefit from cross-selling our ADI and Maxim portfolios. This puts us on a path to achieve our target $1 billion in revenue synergies. For example, at a European auto manufacturer, we built upon our strong audio connectivity position to cross-sell our high speed GMSL technology, connecting their advanced driver systems. We're also capturing new opportunities with GMSL in the industrial market. Last quarter, for example, our technology was designed into autonomous order fulfillment systems at one of the largest e-commerce companies. We're also making great inroads with our broader power portfolio, where our opportunity pipeline increased by double digits last year.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Our increased breadth is helping us to better match customers' performance and power trade-offs across more applications, expanding our power SAM to nearly $10 billion. For example, at a leading European industrial customer, our position in mid-voltage power for distributed IO control systems enabled us to pull through additional power content and precision signal chain sockets, thereby doubling our content per system. Our expanding pipeline and significant revenue synergy opportunities instills greater diversity and resilience into our business while adding new growth vectors. Taken together, I'm confident in our ability to bend the growth curve and move from our historical mid-single-digit growth rate to a long-term model of 7%-10%. In summary, while the macro crosscurrents are creating an abundance of uncertainty, ADI has successfully navigated many slowdowns over the course of our 57-year history.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

The strength of our franchise allows us to invest through business cycles, ensuring we continue to deliver breakthrough innovation, deepen our relevance to our customers, and capture the emerging secular opportunities at the intelligent edge. With that, I'll pass you over to Prashant.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Thank you, Vince. Let me add my welcome to our fourth quarter earnings call. My comments today, with the exception of revenue, will be on an adjusted basis, which excludes special items outlined in today's press release. We closed fiscal 2022 as our second consecutive year of record revenue and profits. We delivered sequential growth each quarter, achieving a new all-time high of $12 billion in revenue. Gross margins of 73.6% increased 270 basis points due to favorable product mix, stronger utilization, and cost synergies. Operating margin of 49.4% increased 700 basis points, reflecting strong execution on OpEx synergies, and adjusted EPS increased nearly 50% to $9.57. For the fourth quarter, revenue was $3.25 billion, finishing at the high end of our outlook.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

As I cover the performance by end market, both for the quarter and full year, my growth comments are on an adjusted combined basis where applicable. Industrial, our most diverse and profitable end market, hit another all-time high and represented 51% of quarterly revenue. Growth was broad-based, with each major application increasing sequentially and year-over-year. For the year, industrial expanded 29% with growth in each business. Notably, digital healthcare was up over 30% and has now achieved seven straight record years. This consistent success in healthcare underscores the breadth of our ICs and subsystem solutions in a key secular growth market where such performance is critical. Automotive, which represented 21% of quarterly revenue, achieved another record year growing both sequentially and year-over-year.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

For the year, auto was up 31%, a favorable mix of premium vehicles, our growing BMS, GMSL, A2B, and functional safe power franchises combined with enhanced value capture drove significant growth compared to SAR. Together, these franchises of BMS, GMSL, A2B, and functional safe power represent over $1 billion of automotive revenue. Communications, which represented 15% of quarterly revenue, achieved another record quarter with strong sequential growth in wireline, while our wireless business was about flat. For the year, comms grew 27%. In wireless, our strong position in radio signal chains is enabling the 5G rollout globally. In wireline, our optical and power portfolios benefited from the continued demand for bandwidth. Lastly, consumer represented 13% of quarterly revenue and was up modestly sequentially and flat year-over-year. Despite a challenging year for the broader industry, consumer finished up 8%.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

This growth is a testament to how we have diversified our consumer business and the innovation premium our products command. Today, approximately 30% of revenue is derived from long lifecycle prosumer applications, including next gen conferencing systems, professional AV, and home theater. While the remaining revenue in consumer relates to the faster-growing wearables and hearables, as well as premium smartphones. I'll move down the P&L for the fourth quarter. Gross margin was 74%, up 310 basis points year-over-year, driven by favorable product mix and synergy capture. OpEx was $744 million, down slightly sequentially due to the realization of additional synergies.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Operating margin increased 800 basis points year-over-year, finishing at a record 51.1% as we exited the year with roughly $350 million of synergies realized across OpEx and cost of goods in our run rate. This incredible pace of synergy capture would not have been possible without the dedication of our integration office and the cross-functional teams that supported them. Non-op expenses were $57 million, and the tax rate was 12.2%. All told, adjusted EPS came in at $2.73, up 58% year-over-year. Moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.5 billion of cash in equivalents, and our net leverage ratio continues to remain below one.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Days of inventory increased to 140, while channel inventory was once again below our target range of seven to eight weeks. Let me provide some additional details on our inventory. First, during these uncertain times, we believe it is prudent to temporarily hold more finished goods on our balance sheet instead of shipping into the channel. This provides us with enhanced flexibility to better align supply with end customer demand across regions and markets. Second, raw material and width are increasing as we begin to rebuild our die bank. Over the last couple years, our die bank was drastically reduced and in some cases sits 50% below optimal levels. Die bank inventory is highly cost-efficient, and it's critical for customer service as it can be used for different markets and customers.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

We believe higher inventory is crucial to reducing lead times as we look to return to our four to eight week target service level over time. Given these actions, we expect inventory to increase in the near term before trending back down as we balance die bank rebuild with finished goods depletion. Moving to cash flow items. CapEx was $305 million for the quarter and $699 million for the year, or 6% of revenue. As we outlined at our Investor Day, we expect elevated CapEx through 2023 at around high single digits as a percentage of revenue. For fiscal 2022, we generated $3.8 billion of free cash flow or 31% of revenue. This is lower than normal given our higher capital intensity and one-time transaction and restructuring costs.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

These near-term headwinds were not unexpected when we outlined our long-term free cash flow target at our Investor Day, we remain committed to growing free cash flow to 40% of revenue. As a reminder, we target 100% free cash flow return. We aim to grow our dividend at a 10% CAGR through the cycle with the remaining cash used for share count reduction. During the year, we returned more than 100% of free cash flow to shareholders. We repurchased $3.1 billion in shares, reducing share count by nearly 4% while paying $1.5 billion of dividends. Let me close with a brief update on the current operating backdrop. As we noted last quarter, the uncertain and slowing macroeconomic environment has had some impact on demand.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

However, after a couple months of slowing orders, we saw bookings stabilize during the quarter at what we'd consider relatively normal levels for entering our first quarter. Not surprisingly, bookings remain the strongest in the industrial and auto, while communications and consumer are weaker. We're guiding first quarter revenue to $3.15 billion ± $100 million. Given this environment, we thought it might be helpful to be a little more prescriptive in our outlook by market. In the first quarter, we expect auto to be up slightly sequentially, industrial about flat, comms to decline by mid-single digits, and consumer to be down double digits sequentially. At the midpoint of our outlook, revenue will be up high teens year-over-year, and our B2B markets increasing over 20%. Op margins are expected to be 50% ± 70 basis points.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Tax rate is expected to be between 12%-14%. Based on these inputs, adjusted EPS should be $2.60 ±$0.10. Stepping back, we are well-positioned in the near term, but the environment remains highly variable and dynamic. ADI, like the rest of the industry, is not immune to a softer macro environment, and thus we remain cautious yet optimistic. Longer term, we have over a year of backlog and continued momentum in our pipeline. We also have high flexibility with our hybrid manufacturing model and several OpEx levers in our toolkit to support our industry-leading margins and maintain robust cash returns to shareholders. Let me now pass it back to Mike for the Q&A.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Prashanth. Now let's get to my favorite part of the call, the Q&A session. We ask that you limit yourself to one question in order to allow for additional participants on the call this morning. If you have a follow question, please re-queue, and we'll take your question if time allows. With that, can we have our first question, please?

[Operator]

For those participating by telephone dial-in, if you have a question, please press star and then one on your phone. If your question has been answered and you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star, then two. If you are listening on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question today comes from Tore Svanberg with Stifel. Please go ahead.

[Tore Svanberg, Managing Director at Stifel]

Yes, thank you. Congratulations on another record quarter. Vince, a question for you. When you talked about the design wins, you know, some of the design win activity, we continue to hear more and more of, you know, the system solutions. I was just wondering if you could add a little bit more color on how your growth is being driven by higher ASPs. I'm not suggesting higher pricing, right? I'm talking about higher ASPs because of your products obviously moving up the value chain to more of a system solution type perspective.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Tori. Firstly, if you look at our ASPs compared to the analog sector, you know, we have a 3x multiple, and versus our closest competitor, we have a 5x multiple, and that diversion has been growing over the last several years. We decided, quite a while ago that across the markets and the applications that we really cared about, that what was really important for us to do was boil down the increasing complexity that our customers are dealing with in their product development systems, and activities. Essentially what we've done is we've taken that complexity into ADI.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

You know, we get to the other side of that complexity with the quality of our innovations, and our ability to be able to couple many, many different facets of our portfolio together in areas like power management. You know, we're building these 3-D stacked module systems, sometimes with ASPs of hundreds of dollars. You know, if you look at our 5G radio systems, same thing. We combine microwave, we combine data conversion, power, digital algorithms, and so on and so forth. We have, you know, within the company, we believe in diversity of technologies, solutions customers, and that choice of business model, Tore, at the end of the day, and how we execute it gives us the richer ASPs when compared with our competitors.

[Tore Svanberg, Managing Director at Stifel]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Tori. Go to our next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from CJ Muse with Evercore. Please go ahead.

[C.J. Muse, Senior Managing Director at Evercore]

Good morning. Thank you for taking the question, and happy early Thanksgiving. I guess I was hoping to probe a bit more around the cautious but optimistic view. You talked about orders stabilizing and a backlog that extends out 12 months. I guess, you know, first question, can you talk about what kind of scrubbing you've done on that backlog? Secondly, you know, based on that, you know, how does that inform your outlook heading into fiscal 2023? Thanks so much.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Thanks, CJ. Let me take that and help give some color on the demand, order and booking. If you step back and think about last year, the first half of the year, we had orders at historical highs. Last quarter in the earnings call, we called out that orders were beginning to slow, and that the decline actually continued into the fourth quarter. We saw orders start to stabilize about midway through the fourth quarter and into the first couple weeks here of the first quarter.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Those bookings are strongest in industrial and auto, not surprising, and weaker in comms and consumer, which I reflected in the guide. From a geo standpoint, we'd say that, not surprising, we're seeing weakness in Asia, especially China, but North America and Europe are holding up well. So given the combination of orders stabilizing and the backlog coverage that we have out, we feel pretty good about the near term. There is uncertainty out there, and things could change fast, but that's sort of what's driving our our sort of cautious optimism.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Yeah. One other thing, CJ, to note, we've said before, the signal we watch most carefully in terms of really trying to understand demand is sell-through rather than sell-in. That, I think, gives us a deeper degree of reality and the match between true demand and supply.

[C.J. Muse, Senior Managing Director at Evercore]

Thank you.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, CJ.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Vivek Arya with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Vivek Arya, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Thank you so much. I actually wanted to follow up on that question. You know, Vince or Prashant, are you surprised why your orders and bookings are holding up better, even though all the headlines we see from a macro perspective seem to be getting tougher? What is helping you? Specifically within your industrial business, is it fair to think that factory automation is perhaps the most macro exposed part? If yes, how should we think about that specific part of your most macro exposed segment within the industrial business going into next year?

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Yeah. Well, let me start with the with the automation question. I've talked with a lot of the automation customers over the last while, and there continues to be, I would say, bullish expectation. I mean, they're not immune from the macro. I think, some of our customers are experiencing some soft cancellations in their business. If you look at what's happening, you know, we're going to see life sciences transform. We're in the early stages of small batch processing in life sciences for manufacturing, for example. The energy sector is another area where particularly the American, the U.S.-based automation customers, a lot of their businesses are, you know, they have a very large portion in the in the energy sector, oil and gas, for example, and that is likely to remain strong.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

If that's a bedrock, that I think that will remain strong for several years to come. We're seeing, you know, onshoring, reshoring. We're seeing movement of manufacturing, for example, into India for the first time in a serious way. My sense is, I mean, the industry won't outrun the macroeconomic conditions, but overall, I think the lending in terms of where demand will be softer than probably normal.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Yeah. Maybe, Vivek, just first, just to emphasize something that we said in the prepared remarks, all subsegments in industrial grew in the fourth quarter, and we feel pretty good about where we are. From a strength in industrial versus the other markets, I'd look at it two ways. First, from a supply standpoint, as we were seeing demand softening in other markets, we have the ability to use our hybrid model to get more wafers from our external partners, and we are biasing this additional supply into the industrial market, which has remained resilient and strong.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

At the same time, recall, we made a decision early in the supply disruption to make sure that we were taking care of our broad market and our smaller customers who tend to be more on the industrial side. From a, from a demand standpoint, the strength and resilience in the industrial kind of speaks to where we play. We have extremely high share in in those markets, and maybe to note versus our peers, some of our peers have cited weakness in, I think they're calling it consumer industrial. We, on the other hand, put that business into our consumer. We call it the prosumer business, professional audio, video, et cetera. When comparing us to peers, you'll see that our industrial might may be more pure industrial.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Yeah. I think as well, you know, for the last decade, 12, 13 years, we've been treating industrial as the bedrock of the company. It gets first call on R&D investments, customer engagements, you know, never have we been more diverse in terms of geographies, customer coverage, depth of coverage, depth of engagement. Also we have product life cycles that stretch into the decades with very, very stable pricing. I think all those factors combine to make this an extremely strong business currently, and we're very, very bullish about the future here as well.

[Vivek Arya, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Thank you.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Vivek.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Josh Buchalter with Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Josh Buchalter, Managing Director and Equity Research at Cowen]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question, and let me echo a happy Thanksgiving. I wanted to ask about inventory levels, and thank you in the prepared remarks for all the color there. Fully understand the finished goods and die bank dynamics along with the lean channel levels. I was wondering, you know, at what range would we be at the point where you'd have to start taking proactive measures to lower inventories? I fully realize you haven't given an inventory target, but can you help us just directionally understand how you're thinking about that? Thank you.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Joshua, welcome to ADI coverage. Let me start with the fourth quarter. Balance sheet days are up to about 140, the channel is flattish, it's still below our desired seven to eight week target. The growth in inventory that you're seeing on our balance sheet is coming from a couple different drivers. Certainly inflation for our cost of goods, sales growth, which requires us to have more coverage of inventory, the strategic decisions we made in the prepared remarks. I do just wanna go through that one more time here.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

We are temporarily gonna hold more finished goods versus putting it into the channel because we believe that gives us the flexibility to align the supply with end customer demand across regions and markets. A bad outcome for us would be to give product to a particular distributor who doesn't have an end customer demand for that product, where someone else in a different market or geography is in need. Second, the die bank has really been dried out over the last couple years. And I think I said it, at some levels, it's below 50% of where we want it. Die bank for us and for folks who may be less familiar with it, this is product that has finished the front end but before it goes to assembly and test.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

This allows us to get it through the back end in roughly four weeks. It's quick turn, and it gives us maximum flexibility to put it across different markets. Investing in the die bank will help us get our service levels, which are critical for us, given the focus we have on customer service, critical for us to get those levels back up. The result is expect higher days in the first half, and then it'll trend back down as finished goods burn out, and the die bank comes to where we would like it to be. Our goal for the inventory is to get our lead times down to our old target, which was roughly 90% of our goods can be shipped within four to eight weeks. You know, given the long life of our products, we always carry a pretty minimal risk of obsolescence.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Prashanth. Jeff, one thing to add. You asked about utilization when we think about taking them down. One thing I wanted to point out is about our swing capacity and across qualification. Before we pulled down our internal utilizations, we'll bring what we can back in from external, internal to support utilizations and our gross margins.

[Josh Buchalter, Managing Director and Equity Research at Cowen]

Appreciate all the color. Thank you guys, and thanks for the warm welcome.

[Josh Buchalter, Managing Director and Equity Research at Cowen]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question today comes from Ambrish Srivastava with BMO Capital. Please go ahead.

[Ambrish Srivastava, Senior Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Hi. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, guys. I'm gonna ask the same question. I think we're all struggling with it. You guys won a lot of accolades for being super transparent last earnings call, you know, talking about the order trends. I think Vivek asked the right question. Were you surprised? Is there a seasonality to it? I mean, nobody doubts your positioning and how strong you are in your chosen markets. Prashanth, thanks for clarifying the prosumer versus other companies calling it legacy industrial. Is there a seasonal aspect to it as well that orders stabilize?

[Ambrish Srivastava, Senior Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

It's very contrary to what we're seeing, hearing from other companies' report, including many industrial companies. Last time you had said that you expected, although order cancellations were very small, you expected them to climb in the current quarter. I would love to get a little bit more color on that. Then a real quick tactical one on lead times. Where are the lead times now? Thank you.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Sure. Yeah, let me just make a comment on cancellations. We provided cancellations as a metric that we watch in the third quarter because we wanted to give everyone some context that we saw an inflection happening with orders. It was in the spirit of transparency. However, I don't wanna get into a pattern of reporting cancellation data every quarter. If it was something meaningful, we would've called it out, which we didn't. You can read that for what it is. I would say that unlike others in the industry, we are proactively analyzing our backlog and working with customers to remove orders that they no longer want given the rapidly changing environment. This strategy for us is to seek out cancellation.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

It helps us align our backlog with current demand, and it really gives us better visibility into where the supply needs and what we need to build. That has increased our confidence in the quality of the backlog we have. It is still, the coverage is out still over a year, but it is down sequentially. While we're always mindful that there can be some continued noise in that backlog, we feel pretty good about both the guide and as we mentioned, you know, the near term. Yeah, I think the diversity is what, Ambrish, of the business in general is stronger than it's ever been. You know, we're getting benefit. We're winning share in the power management market, that sector of our portfolio.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

You know, I think if you, if you look at where we are in the automotive sector, we're getting a very strong tailwind from the electrification of the vehicle. In fact, we're gaining a lot of share in general, I think, with in-cabin and the electric vehicle. I think we've got some tailwinds that are transcending the macro cycle here as well. The only part of the business I would say that has a cyclical timber to it now is the consumer area, where, you know, we have seen kind of the normal pattern there at the, you know, which happens at the tail end of the year.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

You had a question on lead times, Ambrish. The lead times actually in the quarter, they have come down. I would say they're still extremely high and much higher than we want them to get. Prashanth talked about how we wanna increase our inventory to bring down those lead times. We have some products that are on time and some products that are lead times are 52 weeks. Lead times have come down overall sequentially from 3Q to 4Q, and that's reflected in kind of our outlook, our backlog, cancellations, everything that we gave you.

[Ambrish Srivastava, Senior Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Thank you, Mike. Appreciate the transparency of all this.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Abresh.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Stacy Rasgon with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

[Stacy Rasgon, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bernstein]

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I had a quick housekeeping question and then a broader one. The housekeeping question, you had an extra week in Q1 2018, so Q1 2023 would be five years later. Is there an extra week in the guide at all? On the broader question, you talked about some of the OpEx levers that you have. I think last quarter you had talked about like in a 15% revenue down year, you could keep gross margins above 70. I guess the question is, do you still believe that? What would OpEx do in a scenario like that? What are some of the levers you would pull?

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Yeah. Hey, Stacy, I'll do the housekeeping. No. I guess our outlook was very, very strong, given you thought it would be a 14-week quarter. It's not. Our first quarter in 2023 is a 13-week quarter. Our next 14-week quarter will be in 2024. To repeat, the outlook for 1Q is a 13-week quarter.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Okay. I think your question really is on the downturn, scenario analysis. I'll restate that, Stacy. We've covered that a few times, but we put our gross margin floor out there at 70%, and we did that because we have confidence that we have the levers, given the flexibility of our hybrid manufacturing model and the resiliency of our business, that it's unlikely that we're gonna pass through that. So we tested that at a down 15%, and what we've shared with folks in the past is at a down 15, we're quite comfortable that we can stay north of that 70%.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

The OpEx levers for us would be the, you know, about 80% of our OpEx is fixed or, less variable in nature, which leaves us about 20% on the levers that we can work with to ensure that we keep operating margins north of 40%. I will say that for 2023, you know, our commitment is, and as Vince often says, we run this company for the long term. We are, we are committed to continuing to invest throughout the course of 2023. We'll obviously be mindful of the environment and if we see a change that warrants us to take action, you can count on us to take action. We, at least for the next quarter, to expect us to continue to make the right decisions for the long-term health of the business.

[Stacy Rasgon, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bernstein]

That sounds like OpEx ticks up a little bit into Q1 as well, just based on what you just said.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

You read it well, Stacy.

[Stacy Rasgon, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bernstein]

Got it. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks so much.

[Operator]

The next question comes from William Stein with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

[William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Truist Securities]

Thanks. I'm hoping to hit on the inventory question yet again. You've done a very straightforward, good job of explaining to us what's going on in your own inventory. It sounds like distribution is still below your target, even though on their balance sheets, you know, across all their suppliers, it looks like they're elevated. But we've seen other parts of the supply chain, in particular the manufacturing services companies, which I imagine are a big percentage of sort of your counterparty sales on transactions. I'm wondering to what degree you've scrubbed that, half channel, half customer, however you wanna look at it, for inventory that could hurt demand going forward. Thank you.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Thanks. Thanks, Will. Great question. Let me do the easy part of that. That is sell in is essentially equal to sell through. From a channel standpoint, we are, we're well aligned, and our channel partners are not building inventory. I made the comment that we're holding some finished goods on our own balance sheet. From a customer standpoint, I think Vince has had a lot of conversations with customers, so I'm gonna pass to him to talk about what he's hearing from them.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

I don't think our customers are in the mode of building safety stocks. There are mismatches, I think. You know, there's the well-described golden screw problem. It's probably abating compared to where it was six months ago. I don't think there's no major inventory building going on right now. You know, I think our customers are doing their best to match their orders, and the product supply to be able to create finished goods. They're not there yet. I think there is still some unserved demand that customers are trying to fulfill. We're working very closely with our customers.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

As we've said, we take our signals from sell-through, we're working with our customers diligently across all 125,000 of them, big and small, to make sure that we get the best, you know, the best match between what they need and what we're able to deliver. What I'm hearing in general is that, yes, we haven't serviced all the demand that all the customers have needed, but in general, we've been very transparent. Our customers are very pleased with our customer service. I think it positions us very, very well coming out of the supply crunch to be able to deepen our engagements with our customers and both on the R&D side as well as the supply chain side. Customers are increasingly interested to partner with companies like ADI, on both of those dimensions. We're ready.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

We're seeing it in the pipeline, Will. We're seeing it in the pipeline growth.

[William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Truist Securities]

Great. Thank you.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Will. We go to our last question, please.

[Operator]

The last question today comes from Toshiya Hari with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Toshiya Hari, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

Thank you so much for squeezing me in. I had one quick housekeeping question and another broader question. In terms of the housekeeping question, I was curious, what did pricing do in fiscal year 2022 on a pro forma basis? I think the business grew, what is it? Around 25% pro forma. How much of that was pricing? As you think about, you know, fiscal 2023 or calendar 2023, is the expectation for foundry cost to increase in the out year as well? My broader question is probably for Vince.

[Toshiya Hari, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

As you think about the full year, you know, full year 2023, you know, based on your backlog, based on your design wins and customer conversations, which end markets or applications are you most excited about, in terms of contribution to growth? I realize you run a diverse business, and that's the beauty of ADI, but if you were to single out a couple, where your expectations are the highest, which ones would they be, and which end markets or applications would you be most worried about? Thank you.

[Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO at Analog Devices]

Sure. Thanks, Toshi. Let me take the first one quickly. For 2022, growth was fairly balanced, and about half of that is coming from ASPs. I do wanna emphasize something that we've said over the course of all of 2022. We passed cost through to customers. We did not use that environment to raise our gross margins. That was how we did the calculation of how much price to pass on to a customer, was based on the input costs that were relevant to those customers. With that, I'll let Vince take the more interesting part.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Prashant. Yeah, I think in terms of 2023, you know, the markets that have been performing very, very well for the company over the last couple of years, particularly automotive, which we've already talked about. The electrification of the vehicle, we're very, very well positioned there. You know, we're winning a lot of share in the in-cabin electronics as well. The new display systems, which are very, very complex, the dashboard displays, need a lot of very, very clever power electronics, so we're well positioned. From an industrial perspective as well, digital healthcare has been growing at the company for, you know, in double digits for the last seven years or thereabouts. We expect to see that continue. Aerospace and defense. That's likely to be a very brisk business.

[Vince Roche, CEO and Chair at Analog Devices]

It's performing well for ADI now, and I believe at least for the next five years, we'll see stellar growth in that area. Energy. Our energy and sustainability businesses are also beginning to really go on the uptick. Where am I concerned? I'm not really concerned about the business in general, given the diversity that we have, diversity of customers, products, applications. You know, 5G perhaps we'll see what is likely to be weakness in Europe offset by growth in India, growth in O-RAN, steadiness in the U.S. That kind of summarizes how we think about things.

[Toshiya Hari, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs]

Great. Thank you so much.

[Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A at Analog Devices]

Thanks, Toshiya. Thanks, everyone for joining us on the call this morning. Prashant and I will be at CS this year hosting meetings. We also have a booth on the showroom floor where we have technology demos across auto, healthcare, and consumer. We hope to see you there. With that, have a great Thanksgiving, and thanks for joining the call.

[Operator]

This concludes today's Analog Devices conference call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Michael Lucarelli, VP of Investor Relations and FP&A
• Vince Roche, CEO and Chair
• Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, SVP of Finance and CFO

Analysts

• Tore Svanberg, Managing Director at Stifel
• C.J. Muse, Senior Managing Director at Evercore
• Vivek Arya, Managing Director at Bank of America
• Josh Buchalter, Managing Director and Equity Research at Cowen
• Ambrish Srivastava, Senior Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
• Stacy Rasgon, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Bernstein
• William Stein, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Truist Securities
• Toshiya Hari, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs