Fabrinet - Q3 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon. Welcome to Fabrinet's Financial Results Conference Call for the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2024. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions on how to participate will be provided at that time. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Garo Toomajanian, VP of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Garo Toomajanian (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Fabrinet's financial and operating results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024, which ended March 29, 2024. With me on the call today are Seamus Grady, Chief Executive Officer, and Csaba Sverha, Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on the investor section of our website, located at investor.fabrinet.com. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the investor section of our website for important information, including our earnings press release and investor presentation, which include our GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation, as well as additional details of our revenue breakdown. In addition, today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements about the future financial performance of the company.

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from management's current expectations. These statements reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation, and we undertake no obligation to revise them in light of new information or future events, except as required by law. For a description of the risk factors that may affect our results, please refer to our recent SEC filings, in particular, the section captioned Risk Factors in our Form 10-Q, filed on February 6, 2024. We will begin the call with remarks from Seamus and Csaba, followed by time for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Fabrinet's CEO, Seamus Grady. Seamus?

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Thank you, Garo. Good afternoon to those of you joining our call today. We are very pleased with our third quarter results that included revenue and EPS that were above the high end of our guidance ranges. Revenue was a record $731.5 million, and non-GAAP net income was also a record result of $2.39 per share. The quarter played out better than anticipated, with sequential revenue growth in Optical Communications from both Datacom and Telecom, accompanied by a small decline in Non-Optical Communications, mainly from Automotive revenue. Within Optical Communications, Datacom revenue again outpaced Telecom, with Datacom revenue growing 150% from a year ago. Datacom continues to benefit from demand for 800 Gig technology for AI applications, and we remain very optimistic about our position in that market.

After several quarters of declines, Telecom revenue saw sequential growth in Q3. However, it's important to point out that this growth was driven primarily from data center interconnect products that more than offset continued sequential declines from traditional Telecom. We expect to see continued choppiness in Telecom revenue as our customers and their customers continue to work down elevated inventory levels. Turning to Non-Optical Communications, we saw a small sequential revenue decline. This was primarily due to near-term inventory digestion for certain Automotive products in the quarter. Consistent with our comments last quarter, we are optimistic that Automotive revenue will increase sequentially in the fourth quarter. Industrial Laser revenue remained stable in the third quarter. Looking to the fourth quarter, we are well positioned to end our fiscal year on a high note with another strong performance.

High data rate Datacom products continue to be an important driver of our business momentum, and we are confident we can deliver another quarter of accelerating year-over-year revenue growth in Q4. With this momentum, fiscal 2024 will represent another year of record revenue for the company, with EPS again growing faster than revenue. In summary, we delivered a record third quarter with revenue and EPS that were above our guidance ranges. We are looking forward to a very solid finish to an outstanding year for our company, and we are optimistic about what lies ahead as we further extend our leadership in the market. Now I'll turn the call over to Csaba for more financial details on our third quarter and our guidance for the fourth quarter. Csaba?

Csaba Sverha (CFO)

Thank you, Seamus, and good afternoon, everyone. We had a strong third quarter. Revenue was above our guidance range at a record $731.5 million, up 10% from a year ago and up 3% from the second quarter. This drove non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.39, which was also a new quarterly record and above our guidance range. Foreign exchange valuation gains of $0.09 per share contributed to our strong earnings per share, but non-GAAP EPS would still have been well above our guidance even without this tailwind. Details of our revenue breakdown are included in the investor presentation on our website, and I will focus my comments on the more notable metrics.

Optical Communications revenue was $591.4 million, representing 81% of total revenue, an increase of 18% from a year ago and 4% sequentially. Datacom revenue was $305.5 million, or 52% of Optical Communications revenue, an increase of 150% from a year ago and 6% from the prior quarter. This growth came primarily from high data rate products for AI applications, which continue to see strong demand. Telecom revenue was $286 million, or 48% of Optical Communications revenue. Telecom revenue declined 25% from a year ago, but increased 2% from Q2, as data center interconnect growth more than offset continued decline from traditional Telecom products.

By data rate, products rated 400 Gig and faster continued to dominate growth, increasing to $426.3 million in Q3, up 93% from a year ago and 13% from the second quarter. Products rated at 100G continued to see revenue declines and were below 10% of Optical Communications revenue in the quarter. As anticipated, we saw a decline in Non-Optical Communications revenue, which was $140.1 million, down 3% from Q2. This decline was primarily due to previously anticipated inventory absorption of certain Automotive products. Automotive revenue was $73.6 million, down 7% from Q2. We expect Automotive revenue to increase sequentially in the fourth quarter as near-term inventory issues subside. Industrial Laser revenue was flat sequentially.

As I discuss the details of our P&L, expense and profitability metrics will be on a non-GAAP basis unless otherwise noted. Gross margin in the third quarter was consistent with the second quarter at 12.6%. Operating expenses were $14.5 million, or 2% of revenue. This produced operating income of $78 million, representing an operating margin of 10.7%, also consistent in the second quarter. Our low fixed cost structure helped us to maintain our industry-leading margins, which were in line with our long-term target ranges. Our healthy balance sheet, coupled with elevated interest rates, helped to provide $8.5 million of interest income. As I mentioned earlier, net income benefited by $3.3 million, or $0.09 per share, from foreign currency asset and liability revaluations at the end of the quarter.

Effective GAAP tax rate was 2.9% in the third quarter. We continue to anticipate a mid-single-digit rate for the fiscal year. Non-GAAP net income reached $87.7 million, or $2.39 per diluted share. On a GAAP basis, net income was $80 million, or $2.21 per diluted share. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow statements. At the end of the third quarter, cash and short-term investments were $794 million, up $53.4 million from the end of the second quarter. The primary driver of this increase was strong operating cash flow of $100.9 million. With CapEx of $13.6 million, free cash flow in the quarter was $87.3 million. Our share buyback program was active during the quarter.

We repurchased approximately 153,000 shares at an average price of $193.76 per share, for a total cash outlay of $29.6 million. At the end of the third quarter, $64.1 million remained in our share repurchase authorization. Now, I will turn to our guidance for the fourth quarter. We expect Datacom revenue to be slightly up sequentially in the fourth quarter. This growth is being driven primarily by high data rate products for AI, which are more than offsetting the impact of the end of a legacy 100G program. For Telecom revenue, we expect a sequential decline in the fourth quarter as industry-wide inventory absorption continues to impact traditional Telecom product demand. We expect Non-Optical Communications revenue to be up sequentially, driven primarily by an increase in Automotive revenue.

In total, we anticipate revenue to be in the range of $720 million-$740 million in the fourth quarter. We expect net income of $2.20-$2.27 per share. In summary, we had another record quarter with results that exceeded our guidance for both revenue and EPS. We are optimistic that we will see strong results again in the fourth quarter, closing out a year of record revenue and profitability, and we believe we are well positioned for continued success as we look ahead. Operator, we are now ready to open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Certainly. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question. Our first question will come from Samik Chatterjee of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Samik Chatterjee (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple, but maybe if I can start with asking you about the telco, Telecom revenues and sort of the outlook you provided, where you're expecting a sequential decline after the increase you had this quarter. Any more color you can provide in terms of what you're seeing, why the DCI demand is not more sustainable and driving a more sustained sort of sequential recovery in that business? And any updated thoughts on how long the inventory digestion then sort of lasts, that you've been calling out for a few quarters now? And I have a quick follow-up. Thank you.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Hi, Samik. Yeah, the Telecom softness that we've been seeing, we see it continuing for another few quarters. It's probably out into, it's hard to say with certainty, but it's certainly out into, you know, early part or even the middle of calendar 2025 before we see any real growth coming back and increase in demand coming back in Telecom. That industry still seems to be going through this inventory digestion that we've been seeing. You know, our growth in Telecom has been, as you rightly point out, on 400ZR. You know, as you know, sometimes that type of business doesn't grow in a straight line. It's not always up and to the right and linear growth.

But certainly 400ZR, and I would say ZR generally has been a strong point for us. Right now, we have 5 customer engagements on ZR, both 400ZR and also follow on our next generation ZR products. So we're quite, I would say quite optimistic over the medium to long term about DCI and ZR technology in particular. But yeah, there will be a little bit of lumpiness as we go forward. But yeah, Telecom continues to be a soft spot in our business. But you know, Datacom continues to be very strong for us.

Samik Chatterjee (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yep, no, got it. And maybe for my follow-up on the Datacom side, you had about $7 million-$8 million of sequential revenue growth in Datacom this quarter. When you take out the 100G business that's rolling off, what does the underlying sequential growth there look like? Any thoughts on timing of when you start to see a bit, a ramp of the 1.6T product, and that to drive revenue? Thank you.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Yeah, great question. I mean, you know, if you look at our Datacom business in the quarter, it grew 150% year-over-year and 6% quarter-over-quarter, which is still very strong growth, considering, as you say, we did have that 100G product rolling off. It's almost rolled off at this point, but that, you know, that was rolling off in the quarter, while the higher data rates products were continuing to go very strongly for us. You know, the industry is transitioning away from those lower data products and, you know, products that are rated at less than 100G accounted for less than 10% of our Optical revenue.

800 Gig demand remains very robust, and I guess, you know, one of the reasons we remain very optimistic about the future and the strength in Datacom is even with 800 Gig remaining robust, once the next generation products, you know, 1.6 comes along, we believe that will ramp and 800 Gig will continue. So 1.6T won't replace 800 Gig; it will complement 800 Gig. The exact timing of that we're a little bit reluctant to talk about. You know, we only guide one quarter at a time, and also, our customer. We let our customers announce their product launches.

But what I would say is, you know, we're, we're in a very, a very strong position, and we remain very optimistic about our position to continue to support the demand for these products. The demand looks to be very robust, as you say, both for 800 Gig and then, you know, once 1.6T comes along, we think that will be very strong as well.

Samik Chatterjee (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Got it. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Thank you, Samik.

Operator (participant)

One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from Karl Ackerman of BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Karl Ackerman (Managing Director, Semiconductors and Networking Hardware)

Yes, thank you. I was hoping to... I was hoping you could discuss the broadening, or opportunity of broadening of customer design wins and engagements for both 800 Gig as well as 1.6T later on this year. Because it seems, based on your, based on your June quarter guide, that this product transition that you've spoken about for 800 Gig, is certainly holding up better than, what was expected 90 days ago. So if you could just tie those, two in, that would be very helpful.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Yeah. Like you said, 800 Gig remains robust. We don't see 800 Gig tapering off anytime soon. You know, we are gearing up to support the next generation products, the 1.6T products. Again, I'm reluctant to talk about the timing of that because you know, we do only guide one quarter at a time, but we are very optimistic about that, and we think we're very well positioned. You know, there are a number of other engagements we have outside of our main customer there, but they're still in the relatively early stages, I would say.

We're, you know, focused on making sure we continue to support our main customer in that space, and we're very, very happy, I would say, and excited about how we're positioned, both for 800 Gig and also 1.6T, and products beyond 1.6T as well. So we're, you know, working on a pipeline with the customer, making sure we're geared up to support whatever they need from us.

Karl Ackerman (Managing Director, Semiconductors and Networking Hardware)

Yep. Thank you for that. But perhaps just to follow on that, I think there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace between, you know, when to use some of your products, you know, AOC-based products, versus, you know, active copper cable products. And I think there was, you know, some confusion earlier this quarter. Maybe just if you could highlight, where you see your opportunities and, and whether, you know, whether you are seeing any, cannibalization, if at all, for in-rack, connectivity versus short-range connectivity, you know, in the data center for 800 Gig and 1.6T. Again, it doesn't appear like there is an issue, but if you could just highlight, you know, where you see yourself?...

Broadening into or perhaps the opportunities that you see for 800 Gig in the June quarter. That would be very helpful. Thank you.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Yeah, we certainly have not seen any cannibalization of the demand with copper. I think there's an application for copper. I think you know, NVIDIA CEO spoke about that recently, but it's a specific application where they use copper interconnects. It doesn't particularly cannibalize what we're doing for that customer. So we just see, you know, 800 Gig demand remaining quite robust. And you know, the rate of growth, it seems like the rate of growth of Optical interconnect in these AI data centers, it seems to grow more or less exponentially as these data centers grow. The need for Optical interconnect is it's not going to go away. If anything, it's going to increase.

Each, you know, each iteration that comes along, when 1.6T comes along, it doesn't seem like it's going to cannibalize 800 Gig. 800 Gig will continue at a pace, and if anything, will also grow as 1.6 grows. So it's a bit of an unusual... Normally, when there's a, let's say, in the Datacom world, when a new technology comes along, it tends to cannibalize the old technology. But certainly, as we go to higher speeds, 1.6T and beyond, it doesn't seem like the 800 Gig is going anywhere, is going to decline. So we're quite excited about that.

Karl Ackerman (Managing Director, Semiconductors and Networking Hardware)

Thank you.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Thank you. You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Again, please press star one one for any questions. Our next question will be coming from Tim Savageaux of Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Tim Savageaux (Senior Research Analyst)

Hi, good afternoon, and congrats. Strong results.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Thank you.

Tim Savageaux (Senior Research Analyst)

And maybe it's kind of related to the answer to the last question there. I was gonna ask, you know, certainly coming out of OFC and, you know, over the last quarter, about your impressions of the size of this AI connectivity market, and hoping you might have some impressions just because of the kind of specificity of that comment about 1.6 sort of being additive to the mix and eight hundred Gig continuing to grow. I'd be interested in kind of, I guess, at one point—at what point you came to that conclusion on the one hand, and how does that speak to the overall size of the opportunity versus what you might have thought a quarter or two ago? Thanks.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Yeah, I think, you know, if you like, the view that we have, that 1.6T will be additive, and will not cannibalize 800 Gig, that's really a function of looking at the architecture of the products that are in the pipeline. It's in the public domain. If you look at NVIDIA's website and you go to their GPUs, you go to their products, you look at the architecture of those products, you know, 1.6 is additive to 800 Gig. It doesn't appear to be cannibalizing it. When you look at the number of connections, it does not appear that 800 Gig gets cannibalized when 1.6T comes along. So that's really, it's less of an opinion, I suppose, Tim, and more of a just, it's just math.

When we calculate out what's required, you know, it seems like 1.6T will come along, and 800 Gig will continue. So that's really what's behind that. So no particular change in our perception the last 90 days. I guess what we're all, you know, waiting to understand and waiting to see is the timing of the ramp of 1.6, and then, of course, the magnitude of that ramp. Will it be as steep as 800 Gig? I guess that remains to be seen.

Tim Savageaux (Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Well, and as you assess that here over the next couple of quarters, and I imagine that might necessitate some capacity planning on your part. So I'll-

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Savageaux (Senior Research Analyst)

Ask for my quarterly update on any plans for increased capacity or facilities expansion.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

The perennial Building 10 question. Yes, I mean, it's something we evaluate all the time. You know, we have a little bit of space freeing up with the 100G program transferring out. That frees up a little bit of space for us in our Pinehurst operation. But nevertheless, it's something we evaluate very regularly, at least every quarter, and nothing to announce at this point. But you know, what I will say is our Building 8 is basically full at this point. Building 9, the expansion of capacity into Building 9 is going very, very well. We're very happy with how that's been going. It's really ahead of all of our expectations.

If I was to go back even a year or 18 months ago and try to predict where we are right now, I think, you know, we're very pleasantly surprised with where we are right now. We just want to be ready for the next wave and the next phase of growth that might come in our direction. You know, three things have to happen, Tim, for us to capitalize like we did in the last several quarters. The demand has to be there. We think that's pretty certain that the demand is there. We have to have the capacity, and then third, we have to execute. So we're... You know, we do very well when it comes to execution.

We, I think we have a good reputation in that regard, and capacity is really not a problem for us. You know, we were able to capitalize on a very steep ramp and continue to, to, you know, to ship, you know, significant volume to our, to our main customer. But we, you know, we'll be looking at capacity and looking at capacity additions closely over the next while. And, you know, I, I think the, the pace at which we're expanding in building nine, you know, is, is probably ahead of schedule, and we're, you know, we're very, very optimistic about the, the, the future demand. And we, we'll just make sure we're ready and that we have capacity, because it's very low risk, Tim, for us to add additional capacity.

If we were to add another building, it's about ballpark $55 million-$60 million of CapEx, which will add about 1 million sq ft, there or thereabouts, and will give us capacity for an additional... Depends on the products, but probably $1.2 billion of additional capacity. So, and the gross margin headwind for us to do that is about 10 basis points. So it's a very tiny downside, if you like, in terms of the financial headwind, but the potential upside is huge. So it's very low risk for us to do that. But again, nothing, nothing to announce on this call, but certainly we would expect to be, you know, we continue to evaluate it, and I would say stay tuned for the next, for the next while.

Tim Savageaux (Senior Research Analyst)

Maybe just one more thing on that, front. Can you remind us of kind of what the timeframe is from, you know, kind of making the call there to, you know, breaking ground and then being able to ramp capacity?

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Yeah, I think from when we kind of, you know, make the decision, I would say until we're up and running, it's probably 18 months, there or thereabouts, plus or minus. So, you know, we can do it pretty quickly. We have the recipe figured out at this point, and really, we will do more or less a repeat of what we've built before. We might make some small changes, but for the most part, it would be a very similar building to Building 10, albeit the mirror image of Building 10. If you know the geography of our Chonburi campus, we would build, like I say, a mirror image of... I'm sorry, of Building 9. But about 18 months, there or thereabouts.

Tim Savageaux (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, thanks very much.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Thank you, Tim.

Operator (participant)

I would now like to hand the call back to Seamus for closing remarks.

Seamus Grady (CEO)

Thank you for joining our call today. We delivered another strong performance that exceeded our revenue and EPS guidance for the third quarter. We anticipate closing out another record year and believe we are well positioned to extend our success beyond fiscal 2024. We look forward to speaking with you again and to seeing those of you participating in the JPMorgan and B. Riley conferences later this month. Goodbye.

Operator (participant)

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