CEVA - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 revenue was $24.2M (+10% YoY) on strong licensing ($15.0M) but softer royalties ($9.2M); non-GAAP EPS was $0.06 and GAAP EPS was -$0.14.
• Results missed Wall Street consensus on revenue ($26.6M*) and EPS ($0.0704*) for Q1; however, CEVA subsequently beat Q2 2025 consensus on both revenue ($25.3M* est vs $25.7M actual) and EPS ($0.053* est vs $0.07 actual).
• Guidance was lowered: 2025 revenue growth cut from high-single digits to low-single digits; expense plan tightened to in-line with 2024; Q2 revenue guided to $23.7M–$27.7M, with GM ~86% GAAP/87% non-GAAP.
• Operating context: first royalties from a leading U.S. OEM’s in-house 5G modem; Wi‑Fi royalties +183% YoY on mix shift to Wi‑Fi 6 ASP; licensing pipeline highlighted by Wi‑Fi 7 and Edge AI ADAS wins (Nextchip).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Licensing momentum: 11 agreements in Q1 including Wi‑Fi 7 with a long-term connectivity customer, Edge AI NPU for automotive ADAS, and spatial audio for a leading PC OEM; licensing revenue +32% YoY to $15.0M.
• Strategic royalty drivers: “We received the first royalty report from a leading U.S. OEM using our technology in their in-house 5G modem,” positioning CEVA for a meaningful long-term revenue stream.
• Wi‑Fi royalty leverage: Wi‑Fi royalties +183% YoY on a 12% unit increase, reflecting higher ASPs of Wi‑Fi 6; shipments robust across consumer/industrial IoT and Bluetooth.

What Went Wrong

• Royalty shortfall: “Royalty revenue fell short of expectations due to soft low-cost smartphone shipments and an industrial customer with a slower product ramp-up”.
• Gross margin slightly below forecast/guidance (GAAP 86%, non-GAAP 87%) with some R&D costs allocated to COGS for a strategic satellite modem customer, trimming GM by ~1–2 pts.
• 2025 outlook caution: management lowered full-year revenue growth to low-single digits amid macro uncertainty and indirect demand impacts; sequential recovery in royalties expected but visibility reduced.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day and welcome to the CEVA First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Richard Kingston, Vice President of Market Intelligence and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Richard Kingston (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to CEVA's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Amir Panush, Chief Executive Officer, and Yaniv Arieli, Chief Financial Officer of CEVA. Before handing over to Amir, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they materialize or prove incorrect, could cause the results of CEVA to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding our strategy and growth opportunities, market positioning, trends, and dynamics, including with respect to significantly expanding market share in wireless communication IP and to momentum in diversifying our royalty customer base.

Expectations regarding demand for and benefits of our technologies and revenues, expectations regarding technology innovations, including timeline to revenue generation, our sales pipeline and backlog, and our financial goals and guidance regarding future performance. CEVA assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information which speaks as of their respective dates. We will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide a more meaningful analysis of our core operating results and comparison of quarterly results. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings release we issued this morning and in the SEC filing section of our Investors Relations website. With that said, I'd like to turn the call over to Amir, who will review our business performance for the quarter and provide some insight into our ongoing business. Amir?

Amir Panush (CEO)

Thank you, Richard. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. In the quarter, we delivered solid progress in our licensing business, reinforcing our long-term growth strategy and expanding our customer engagement across all of our targeted use cases: connect, sense, and infer, enabling edge AI. Royalty revenue fell short of expectations due to a combination of soft low-cost smartphone shipments and an industrial customer who had a slower product ramp-up than in the prior year. However, by implementing cost control measures, we mitigated some of the revenue impact and achieved profitability close to non-GAAP EPS consensus. Importantly, our design wins this quarter not only strengthened our long-standing partnerships with key connectivity customers but also expanded our footprint with new customers, embracing our sensing and edge AI IPs, laying a strong foundation for future growth.

Total revenue for the quarter came in at $24.2 million, up 10% year over year. Licensing revenue was $15 million, with 11 deals concluded in the quarter, including a number of notable strategic deals, which I will elaborate on now in the context of the three use cases that underpin our business. Connectivity serves as the foundational pillar of edge AI, enabling seamless communication between devices and data centers. For this use case, we have solidified our market leadership position by securing several strategic agreements with multiple key Bluetooth and Wi-Fi customers, reinforcing our position in the long-term roadmap.

One of our current highest volume customers, who has a well-established global customer base and who is already shipping in volume single and multi-protocol combo chips based on CEVA Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 6 IP, has selected our Wi-Fi 7 IP for its next-generation product, demonstrating the trust and long-term partnership with us. In addition to this customer, we also signed a new long-term Wi-Fi 6 deal with another high-volume customer, a Bluetooth 6 Wi-Fi 6 combo deal with a top 10 MCU vendor, and next-generation Bluetooth deals with two of our leading audio customers as they continue to expand their connectivity offerings based on CEVA's market-leading technology. The second pillar enabling edge AI is the sensing use case, which includes inputs and outputs that help devices better understand their surroundings and deliver enhanced user experiences, such as improved audio performance.

For this use case, we secured multiple deals, most notably an agreement for our real-space spatial audio software, which will be integrated into professional headsets and other audio devices from a leading PC OEM. This marks a significant milestone as it validates the quality and robustness of our spatial audio software solution. After sensing data about the environment, inferencing such data enables devices to better interpret their environment and proactively suggest appropriate courses of action. For this use case, we signed an important deal for our high-performance NewPoem edge AI NPU with Nexchip, a Korean automotive semiconductor, for their next-generation ADAS solutions. Let me explain a bit more about this use case and why we were selected. The overall performance and safety of ADAS systems continue to rapidly advance thanks to cutting-edge advancements in AI, such as vision transformers.

Vision transformers are a way for AI to analyze an image holistically, as opposed to traditional convolution neural networks that analyze images pixel by pixel. This brings significant benefits and superior performance for ADAS vision systems, including object recognition, segmentation, and free space detection in complex scenes. The NewPoem's support for vision transformers, coupled with its ability to process multiple video streams and AI models all in parallel, make it ideal for next-generation ADAS systems. We are currently engaged in multiple discussions related to AI inferencing using our NewPoem NPU family, including several automotive players for their next-generation platforms that require processors upgrades to support these latest AI advancements and techniques. In royalties, while overall revenue declined for the reasons previously mentioned, shipments volume remained strong, and we remain very positive about the long-term potential of our royalty business.

Also, we have several notable achievements that highlight other royalty drivers for the business. In this regard, I'm pleased to share that we received the first royalty report from a leading US OEM using our technology in their in-house 5G modem. As I discussed on our last earnings calls, we anticipate this customer will significantly expand our market share in wireless communication IP and generate a meaningful long-term royalty stream in the years to come. Additionally, our Wi-Fi royalties grew 183% year over year from a 12% increase in unit shipments. This growth was driven by a favorable product mix shift towards Wi-Fi 6, which commands a higher royalty ASP compared to previous generations. This is a strong indicator that our Wi-Fi 6 customers are continuing to gain traction, particularly in the consumer and industrial IoT markets.

All in all, our first quarter licensing performance and continued momentum in diversifying our royalty customer base reinforce the success of our transformation into a highly diversified IP powerhouse. We serve a broad range of end markets with a portfolio of high-value products and solutions that enable any smart edge device to connect, sense, and infer data. As a reminder, success in the IP licensing business is measured over a horizon of several years. The innovations and technologies our engineers are designing today will reach commercial products and begin to generate royalties within three to five years. This long-cycled view underpins how we think and manage our business and shape our strategy focused on accumulated and sustained value creation over time. Our priorities remain clear: continue innovating for our customers, deepen our technology leadership, and build a strong future royalty stream while managing expenses with discipline.

I'm confident in our ability to navigate the short-term volatility while focusing on our mission to be the IP partner of choice for companies building smart edge devices that connect, sense, and infer data. Now, I will turn the call over to Yaniv for the financials.

Yaniv Arieli (CFO)

Thank you, Amir. Good morning. I'll now start by reviewing the results of our operations for the first quarter of 2025. Revenue for the first quarter increased 10% to $24.2 million as compared to $22.2 million for the same quarter last year. The revenue breakdown is as follows. Licensing and related revenues increased 32% to $15 million, reflecting 62% of our total revenues, as compared to $11.4 million for the first quarter of 2024. Royalty revenue decreased 14% to $9.2 million, reflecting 38% of our total revenue, down from $10.7 million for the same quarter last year. Quarterly gross margins came in 1% lower than forecasted and guided, 86% on GAAP basis and 87% on non-GAAP basis. As you recall, we discussed the allocation of design activities for a strategic customer in the satellite modem space.

Some R&D costs for these efforts are presented in the cost of revenue and not in the R&D expense line. Total gross operating expenses for the first quarter were at the low end of our guidance range, at $25.1 million. Total non-GAAP operating expenses for the first quarter, excluding equity-based compensation expense and amortization of intangibles and deal costs, were $20.7 million, below the low end of our guidance and similar to last year's level. GAAP operating loss for the first quarter was $4.4 million, down from GAAP operating loss of $5 million in the same quarter a year ago. Non-GAAP operating margins and income were 1% of revenues and $0.3 million, compared to operating loss margin of 4% and operating loss of $0.8 million recorded for the first quarter of 2024, respectively. Expense monitoring contributed to partially offset lower-than-expected total revenues.

Financial income was $2.1 million, compared to $1.3 million income for the first quarter of 2024, significantly higher than our estimates and prior year. This was due to a significant increase in value of the euro versus the US dollar for the first quarter, of over 7%, impacting the value of our euro-denominated assets, especially French tax receivables. GAAP and non-GAAP profits were approximately $1 million, slightly lower than our guidance, and affected by the geographies of the revenue recognized from deals and the royalty revenues. GAAP net loss for the first quarter was $3.3 million, and diluted loss per share was $0.14, as compared to a net loss of $5.4 million and diluted loss per share of $0.23 for the first quarter of 2024.

Non-GAAP net income and diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2025 was $1.4 million and $0.06, respectively, as compared to a net loss of $1.3 million and diluted loss per share of $0.05 reported for the same quarter last year. With respect to other related data, shipped units by CEVA licensees during the first quarter of 2025 were 420 million units, up 13% from the first quarter of 2024 reported shipment. Of the 420 million units reported, 49 million or 12% were for mobile handset phone modems. 337 million units were for consumer IoT markets, up 19% from 284 million units in the first quarter of 2024. 34 million units were for industrial IoT markets, up 26% from 27 million units in the first quarter of 2024.

Bluetooth shipments were 233 million units in the quarter, up 15% from 202 million units in the first quarter of 2024. Cellular IoT shipments were 48 million units, up 31% year over year. Last Wi-Fi shipments were 35 million units, up 12% from 31 million units a year ago. Wi-Fi royalty revenue, however, was up 183% year over year due to a strong contribution from Wi-Fi 6 shipments, which carry a higher ASP than the older Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 standards. Overall, royalties were below our expectations, primarily due to slower smartphone ship units for the low-cost smartphone markets and an industrial customer who had a slower product ramp-up than a year ago. As for the balance sheet items, as of the end of March, CEVA's cash, cash equivalent balances, marketable securities, and bank deposits were approximately $158 million.

Our DSOs for the first quarter were 54 days, similar to prior quarters. During the first quarter, we used $7 million cash from operating activities. Our ongoing depreciation and amortization was $0.9 million, and purchase of fixed assets was $0.3 million. At the end of the first quarter, our headcount was 435 people, of whom 354 were engineers. Now for the guidance. As we discussed in our prepared remarks, our licensing business continues to perform well, with robust entrants in our edge AI portfolio and continued expansion of our wireless leadership. In royalties, we highlight a US Smartphone OEM that reported its first 5G modem royalties to us in the quarter, and the ASP uplift in Wi-Fi 6 as our customers' volume shipments increase.

As for the global macro environment and tariffs, while we do not see any direct impact from tariffs, the indirect impact on consumer demand, among other factors, has increased the uncertainty about the year. Given these evolving dynamics and as we are lower than anticipated revenues for the first quarter, we are adopting a more cautious outlook for the rest of the year, lowering 2025 revenue guidance from high single-digit range to a low single-digit range for growth over 2024 annual revenues. On the expense side, we are lowering our overall expense level, cost of revenue, and OpEx together from a range of 2%-6% over 2024 to in line with 2024, or $96 million-$100 million with non-GAAP OpEx slightly lower than 2024.

Based on these changes, we anticipate a double-digit % increase in non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP operating margins, non-GAAP net income, and fully diluted non-GAAP EPS relative to 2024, but at a lower % than our earlier guidance, specifically for the second quarter of 2025. On royalties, we expect sequential growth due to the seasonality and expansion of a CEVA-powered 5G smartphone modem in the second quarter and beyond. Total revenue is forecasted to be $23.7 million-$27.7 million. Commerce margin is expected to be similar to the first quarter we just reported. We forecast approximately 86% on a non-GAAP basis and 87% on a non-GAAP basis, excluding an aggregate of $0.1 million for equity-based compensation expenses and $0.1 million in amortization of acquired intangibles. GAAP OpEx for the second quarter of 2025 is expected to be in the range of $25.1-$26.1 million.

On the anticipated total operating expenses for the first quarter, $4.5 million is expected to be attributed to equity-based compensation expense, $0.2 million for motivation of acquired intangibles, and $0.1 million for costs associated with business acquisitions. Non-GAAP OPEX is expected to be similar to the first quarter level and in the range of $20.3-$21.3 million, also lower than the second quarter 2024 OPEX level. Net interest income is expected to be approximately $1.3 million. Taxes for the second quarter are expected to be approximately $1.2 million, and the share count for the second quarter is expected to be 25.6 million shares. Danielle, you could open the Q&A session, please.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.

Yaniv Arieli (CFO)

If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. The first question comes from Kevin Cassidy from Rosenblatt Securities. Please go ahead.

Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)

Yes. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on the AI NPU ADAS win. But can you say whether was this just a win with the tier-one supplier, or does the tier-one supplier have a program at an automotive OEM that's secured?

Amir Panush (CEO)

Yes. Kevin, thanks for the question. First, this is a very important design win for us with the new plan. This is really validating the technology and the maturity to go all the way into ADAS automotive market segment. And we believe that also will propel significant additional design wins as we go into Q2 and the rest of the year. Specifically to your question, this is a design with the tier ones.

They already have secured so-called OEM customers, but it's not going to go into only one specific OEM, but that it will be part of their next-generation platform that will go into multiple sockets.

Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Congratulations. You showed great increase with the transition to Wi-Fi 6. With Wi-Fi 7 designs being won now, is there a similar, I guess, increase in ASPs with Wi-Fi 7, or is it even greater than the transition from 5 to 6?

Amir Panush (CEO)

Yes. Thanks for the question, Kevin. This is Amir. A few things here to unpack and talk about the whole licensing business that we had this quarter and the impact for us, so-called, moving forward in the long term. First, we are really happy to see multiple of our customers that have licensed the previous generation, now adding either Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or the combination.

We had two new deals of a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 6 combination this quarter. We are very happy to see one of our high-volume customers of Wi-Fi 4 that is already migrating to Wi-Fi 6, now licensing Wi-Fi 7 from us. Again, great testimony to see how our customers trust our technology. Overall, we keep expanding our leadership position in the marketplace. Specifically for ASP, as illustrated from the numbers this quarter, while the volume shipments grew by about 12% year over year, the revenue grew by more than 180%. This has really contributed to the transition from Wi-Fi 4 to Wi-Fi 6. With that migration, we will see a major uplift in the average ASP. On top of that, as customers migrate in volume production to Wi-Fi 7, we expect to see another uplift.

Of course, those designs in production environment will come later in the future years. Already through 2025, and as we talked also 2026 and beyond, we will see tremendous so-called increase in volume as well as average ASP for Wi-Fi, the transition to Wi-Fi 6. On top of that, Wi-Fi 7 will generate another uplift.

Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Thank you, Kevin.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star 1. The next question comes from David O'Connor from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

David O'Connor (Security Analyst)

Yeah. Great. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just carrying on from Kevin's question there, just on the new ADAS win, Amir, can you kind of give us a sense of the competitive environments that kind of around that win? Kind of what other type of solutions was the customer looking at? Was it kind of internal?

Was it other off-the-shelf solutions? And kind of just the key metrics, really, that allowed you to kind of get that design win over the line? I have another follow-up. Thanks.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Yeah. That's okay, David. If we look overall at the market right now for AI NPU, high-end solutions for the edge, what is happening is really the migrating to the more advanced models using transformer, in that specific case, vision transformers. For the edge, it really requires a combination of extremely power-efficient solutions, as well as smaller in size or cost structure. Very, very importantly for automotive, extremely low latency. The reaction and so-called the ability to interrupt the data needs to be very, very quickly and nanoseconds or milliseconds.

Our technology really excels in those metrics as we put them together, coming from our ability and history and DNA in edge devices and low-power devices. On top of that is really the combination of the hardware and the software integrated and scalable to go into the different tiers of performance that those customers need. As I mentioned, for the last several quarters, we have really built a scalable architecture for NPU that can go from several TOPS all the way to hundreds of TOPS. With that, all the software stacks are supported. I think this gives us really great advantage in the market. I strongly believe that we will see more and more design wins of our new plan or high-end NPU in the marketplace this year and through the quarters.

David O'Connor (Security Analyst)

That's very helpful. Great color there, Amir. Thank you for.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Sorry, David, one last comment. Just to remind everyone, we talked about two other customers that are already ramping right now in 2025 based on our vision AI DSP technology. Not only are we winning designs, but also we see a wide event this year in the automotive space. Thanks.

David O'Connor (Security Analyst)

Awesome. Thank you, Amir, for that. Maybe just another question. Just on the softness you saw on the kind of low end of the smartphone market, was that kind of anything tariff-related in your view? Was it kind of customer product transition? Is that just kind of expectation there, just a one-quarter impact? Do you expect that to recover? Any color around that kind of lower end of the market there that kind of stands out to you guys? I have one last follow-up. Thank you.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Yeah, David, great question.

Let me unpack really what happens in Q1 related to our smartphone customers and just overall how we see the market. Overall, yeah, in Q1, we have seen a slower start than what we expected. The seasonality of that customer from Q4 to Q1 dropped more than we anticipated due to some of the supply chain activities that people needed to address in Q1. After my discussion with the customers and overall my understanding of the market is that overall these customers will be able to ramp on a quarterly sequential volume ramp doing very well and according to basically what we have seen in 2024. Overall, we anticipate the customers to contribute nicely, the same as we saw in 2024. The last piece I will mention about it is this customer ships the majority of the volume worldwide outside the U.S.

We do not expect, so-called, direct impacts of tariffs on this customer. With that, we expect nice ramp through the year.

David O'Connor (Security Analyst)

That is very helpful. Thank you for that. Maybe just one for Yaniv, just on the licensing pipeline, how would you kind of describe that? I know you have given the guide for the year, but just kind of over through Q1, are you seeing kind of an acceleration in that in terms of design activity? Any kind of change in customer kind of behavior, pushing out design decisions maybe? Anything kind of along those lines, just kind of with an eye on kind of tariffs and macro concern in the background? Any color around that kind of activity and momentum would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Yaniv Arieli (CFO)

Sure. It is a good question. I think this is a concern that is around many, many companies in the technology space.

We haven't seen such decisions in the first quarter or postponing deals or decisions because of the macro. Obviously, this is a concern that is out there, and this is why we're deciding to take a more cautious approach for the rest of the year. In theory, things like that can happen. When we guide and we have guided the last couple of quarters, we don't break out the licensing and the royalties as we don't have the crystal ball ahead of the beginning of the quarter. But the level that we just reported, and if you look at the Q3, Q4 of last year, the average of the first and second quarter of last year, this is a decent, more or less, plus-minus, this is a decent level that we want to continue to do with our licensing activity.

Obviously, things look better than where you think you could put up there at the price. If there will be some concessions and concerns by different players in the industry because of the macro, not necessarily tariffs directly, but just macro overall, then maybe some decisions in licensing may be postponed. For now, we've not seen that happening per se.

The other thing, David, I will add on that. I think also what we see actually as an IP supplier is also the opportunity, so-called, potentially picking up thanks to the localization and the need to have the technology, so-called, within those specific regions. Yeah, on a mix, there's definitely risk of headwinds coming with just the softness of the market potentially because of tariffs and consumer demand.

On the other hand, there definitely are the tailwinds of our customers looking to have their own access and capabilities to drive their own technology and whatnot, licensing IP from us.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Very helpful, Connor.

David O'Connor (Security Analyst)

Thank you, guys.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Thanks, David.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Chris Reimer from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I'm sorry if this was asked already. I was cut off earlier and did not hear the first part of the questions. I'm just wondering about the gross margin and this one design customer that you mentioned. Can you give us an idea of maybe what percent? Hello? Hey, Amir here. We hear you. Yeah. Can you give us an idea of what percent that actually is of the overall? And how much longer do you expect to continue with the extra allocation there?

Yaniv Arieli (CFO)

Sure.

Last year, we talked about really few design wins with 5G advanced solutions, very high-end, very sophisticated, to many new use cases. Some of them are satellites, some are base stations. Not necessarily those new customers in those new spaces know how to deal with the modem and how to build the right use case that they need. One of the advantages that we could offer is some customization and some help in the design activity of changing or adopting from an off-the-shelf type of modem to something that fits their use case in a more efficient way. We have a group of engineers that are dedicated for that project. It is usually a couple of quarters or anywhere between one to a year type of project.

If you look at an example in the first quarter of last year when we recorded 90% gross margin, about $2.2 million, the following quarter was $2.5-$2.6 million. That is probably a pretty clean quarter without those efforts. And probably $1 million or more above that, this is some of the allocation just from R&D. It does not change the overall cost of the company. It just records some of these efforts for a specific customer. This is one of the advantages for us in a very advanced technology like 5G advanced to win new business. Because if not, they would not have taken that risk of such a new and complicated design. For a few quarters, you could see 1% or 2% lower margins, but this is still an IP business model with a 9%-plus or plus-minus percent gross margins.

Every once in a while, if you have these activities, you would add $1 million, $1.5 million. When that deal is done and the services are done, then we bring them back to the R&D line and focus those costs on new technologies and future developments. Yeah. The other thing I will add on top of that is, Amir, is that all that customization and enhanced features that we are building, it's all our IP, and we intend and can leverage that to other customers as well. While there is so-called a short-term impact on potential 1% or 2% of the gross margin, at the end of the day, this is all helping us to secure those sockets, very high-end sockets and driving long-term royalties, as well as advance the technology overall.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. That's really great color.

Just touching on shipments, you mentioned the slowness in the smartphone and that the customer would begin ramping up. Given your reduced outlook, is there any other area you're concerned about, or is it just an overall proactive conservatism?

Amir Panush (CEO)

There are two aspects to that question. One, as Amir explained, the low-cost smartphone was a bit slower for the beginning of the year. We believe it's just a timing issue. We believe to see a ramp-up in the second quarter. Therefore, Q3 and Q4, we have seen that trend for many years. The extent of how the year starts, and as we said, the falloff from Q4 to Q1 varies from year to year, but Q1 is usually lowest for many for a long, long period of time. Then it kicks in with the highest number in volumes and royalties for us by the fourth quarter.

The other new design win, not a design win, it's really going into production. As we all know, didn't have a full quarter. We'll see much more of that being reported to us and sold on a three-month full quarter basis in the second quarter. That is here to stay for the foreseeable future. We are very excited about this opportunity. For sure, Q2 is going to have higher numbers, and this is why we guided sequential growth from Q1 to Q2. That should continue throughout the rest of the year with new balls coming out later in the year. I think this is the way to look at it from the handset perspective. From all the other market segments that we talked about, consumer IP, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular IP, a very nice start for the year on the volume perspective, and also the Wi-Fi ASP.

If we did not have that timing issue, we could have posted a very nice start for the year. The rest of the cautiousness is just due to the market conditions.

Yaniv Arieli (CFO)

Yeah, maybe it is, Amir. Maybe I will unpack it a little bit further and provide more colors. As we look at Q1, we are very happy to see a very solid licensing execution. With that, we are really solidifying our leadership in wireless communication, as well as penetrating more and winning in the AI space. Overall, we are extremely encouraged by the licensing deals that we got in Q1. Definitely on the royalty, that came below expectation due to the two customers that we mentioned in the prepared remarks.

With that said, on the mobile side, mobile handsets, one, with that customers, we expect the revenue to pick up nicely through the years and to basically meet what we have seen in 2024, as well as, of course, the ramp-up of the new customers overall gaining market share. That is in mobile. This is a very strong tailwind for us this year. The other one is on Wi-Fi 6 that we have talked about for a while, both volume ramp as well as significant ASP increase. For those two tailwinds and overall the portfolio that we have in IP to drive licensing, we feel good about it and the overall perspective for the year.

With that said, considering Q1 came short to our expectation on the top line, as well as just the macroeconomics that have changed quite a bit since our last call three months ago, we believe it's prudent to take a more cautious approach for the rest of the year. With that, we basically guided down, still a growth year, but we guided down the expectation for the revenue growth. All in all, in terms of our technologies and our ability to go drive growth and success both in 2025 and in the long run, we are very confident about that. We cannot ignore overall the market sentiment out there and that we have a Q1 that was lower than our expectation on the top line. With that, we reduced the guidance for the year. Still a growth year, but a single-digit growth target. Got it.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks a lot for the color. That's it for me.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Thank you, Chris.

Operator (participant)

There's a follow-up question from Kevin Cassidy from Rosenblatt. Please go ahead.

Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thanks for taking my follow-up. And just as far as customer behavior goes, investors got into a bit of a panic, we'll say, about DeepSeek and these other low-cost and, say, smaller LLMs that are coming into the market. Can you say how that's changing your demand for your NPU IP?

Yaniv Arieli (CFO)

Yeah. Thanks for the question. Actually, that transition is great for us. For AI, we've seen the success and the growth mostly on the cloud for now for several few years. And that, of course, will keep growing very nicely in the coming few years.

The transition from running the models on the cloud, in case of inference, really running the model on real-time, that transition from the cloud to the edge has not really in a big number started yet. Now it is really happening. It is so-called the beginning was 2024, now moving into the next few years. Models like DeepSeek, and actually what we see right now also from the other Western large LLM companies that are building those models, they are all coming with more optimized LLM models that can be run way more efficiently on edge devices. We believe that we will see a major transition where smartphone, PC, tablets, automotive systems, other smart edge devices will integrate more and more AI or NPU capabilities, and will be able to run much more efficiently those models because they will be smaller, more optimized, and with that, lower latency and lower power.

So actually, DeepSeek coming with this technology and what's coming now in the Western world as well, extremely encouraging to enable our future growth in the marketplace.

Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thanks for clarifying that.

With that, we are looking to support those models, of course. Yes, sorry. Right. Yep.

Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

The next question comes from Suji Desilva from Roth Capital. Please go ahead. Hi, Amir. Hi, Yaniv. Can you talk to me maybe with given all the macro and tariff uncertainty, if you're seeing any impact in the licensing environment, if you're seeing any programs that were underway being pushed, or if the activity remains unimpacted so far?

Amir Panush (CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Suji, for the question. First, just to clarify, we do not see direct impact of tariffs in terms of so-called paying taxes or our customers need to pay taxes on licensing our technology.

The indirect demand in Q1, we've seen very strong demand. With that, we have been able to close both a good number of deals as well as very strategic deals for us. We have a very good pipeline for Q2 and the rest of the year. We haven't seen that pipeline decrease. Overall, when we talk with customers, I would say on average, people are a little bit more cautious out there. More than anything, most customers say, "We don't know what we don't know, and we need to see how things will shape up." I think that's overall what we hear out there. With that, of course, considering Q1 and what we said, being more prudent with the cautious outlook, we guided lower for the year.

When we go and specifically talk with customers and work on programs that are in the making, we have not seen an impact.

Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks, Amir. Appreciate the candid response there. Looking at your royalty units in Wi-Fi, are those wins ramping and tracking to follow the success, the shared success you have had with Bluetooth? Is there any impact there as well, or are those programs coming to market?

Amir Panush (CEO)

I think actually on that, we are extremely encouraged. We have licensed to tens of customers our Wi-Fi 6 technology. Many of them are ramping volume production. On average, we are really encouraged by our customers able to so-called integrate the technology, take it to PayPal, and now take that into volume production. We are actually exactly on track to what we want to achieve in terms of the Wi-Fi ramp in the coming few years.

Now, of course, with that, there will be the transition to Wi-Fi 7 as well. Although I would say the competitive landscape is such that we are really becoming not only the de facto IP supplier for Bluetooth, but as well as for Wi-Fi. With that, Wi-Fi 6, and then transition to Wi-Fi 7.

Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Very good. Thanks, Amir. Thanks, everybody.

Amir Panush (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Richard Kingston for closing remarks.

Richard Kingston (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Danielle. Thank you, everybody. As a reminder, the prepared remarks at this conference call are filed as an exhibit to the current report on Form 8K and accessible through the investor section of our website. With regards to upcoming events, we will be participating in the following conferences: the J.P.

Morgan 53rd Annual Global Technology Media and Communications Conference, May 13 and 14 in Boston, Oppenheimer 26th Annual Israeli Conference, May 18th in Tel Aviv, the Stifel Boston Cross-Sector One-on-One Conference, June 3rd and 4th in Boston, the Rosenblatt 5th Annual Technology Summit, The Age of AI, on June 10th, being held virtually, the 15th Annual Roth London Conference, June 24th and 25th in London, and the Northland Growth Conference 2025 on June 25th, also being held virtually. For information on these events and all events we will be participating in, can be found on the investor section of our website. Thank you and goodbye.

Operator (participant)

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.