InterDigital - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 revenue of $210.5M and Non-GAAP EPS of $4.21 were above the top end of the increased March guidance, driven by a new license with vivo Mobile and stronger variable royalties; Adjusted EBITDA reached $159.1M with a 76% margin.
• Results beat Wall Street consensus: revenue $210.5M vs $205.3M*, and Non-GAAP EPS $4.21 vs $3.79*; both represent meaningful upside.*
• Annualized recurring revenue reached a record $502.9M (+30% YoY); smartphone ARR was highlighted at ~$416M, underpinning momentum toward the 2027 $500M smartphone ARR target.
• FY 2025 guidance reaffirmed (revenue $660–$760M; Adjusted EBITDA $400–$495M; Non-GAAP EPS $9.69–$12.92); Q2 2025 outlook introduced (revenue $165–$170M; Non-GAAP EPS $2.67–$2.90), with the HP PC license signed in April as a visible near-term driver.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• New vivo smartphone license drove revenue above guidance and expanded coverage to seven of the ten largest vendors and ~80% of global smartphone shipments; management cited cumulative TCV >$3.6B since 2021. “We now have seven of the ten largest smartphone vendors and almost 80% of the entire global smartphone market under license.”
• Record ARR and strong profitability: Adjusted EBITDA rose 22% YoY to $159.1M, margin expanded 27 ppt to 76% as revenue-share OpEx from last year’s catch-ups rolled off.
• HP PC licensing in Q2 expanded CE/IoT coverage to “more than 50% of the PC market,” validating growth beyond smartphones.

What Went Wrong

• Total revenue fell 20% YoY as catch-up revenues declined to $84.8M from $166.7M in Q1’24; CE/IoT/Auto revenue was down sharply YoY ($26.3M vs $182.5M) given last year’s large Samsung TV catch-up.
• Cash from operations was -$19.99M and free cash flow was -$47M due to payment timing, a known quarterly volatility factor.
• 2027 3.50% Senior Convertible Notes are convertible in Q2 2025; potential dilution remains a focus even with call spread hedges and strong balance sheet.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Raiford Garrabrant, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Raiford Garrabrant (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, France, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to InterDigital's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I am Raiford Garrabrant, Head of Investor Relations for InterDigital. With me on today's call are Liren Chen, our President and CEO, and Rich Brezski, our CFO. Consistent with prior calls, we will offer some highlights about the quarter and the company, and then open the call up for questions. For additional details, you can access our earnings release and slide presentation that accompany this call on our Investor Relations website. Before we begin our remarks, I need to remind you that in this call we will make forward-looking statements regarding our current beliefs, plans, and expectations, which are not guarantees of future performance and are made only as of the date hereof.

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from results and events contemplated by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those described in the risk factors sections of our 2024 Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our other SEC filings. In addition, today's presentation may contain references to non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the supplemental materials posted to the Investor Relations section of our website. With that taken care of, I will turn the call over to Liren.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Thanks, Raiford. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. On our last call, we provided annual guidance for 2025 with revenue of between $660 million and $760 million. This guidance highlights the increasing momentum of our business and the multiple growth opportunities that we have identified and expect to achieve through the rest of this year. Today, I'm pleased to share that we have made significant headway in achieving our goal and reconfirmed our 2025 annual guidance. During this quarter, we licensed Vivo Mobile, a major smartphone manufacturer, to drive revenue above the top line in our guidance and increase our annual recurring revenue to all-time record levels.

We were also once again recognized as one of the world's leading innovators, demonstrated our cutting-edge technology at the Mobile World Congress trade show, and shortly after the quarter closed, we signed another major license agreement with HP in our consumer electronics and IoT program. Our revenue, Adjusted EBITDA, and non-GAAP EPS for Q1 were all above the top line in our guidance. The revenue from our smartphone program more than doubled year-over-year. Our annualized recurring revenue is up 30% year-over-year at an all-time record of more than $500 million. Rich will go over all the numbers in detail in his section. The program we have made gives us a very strong base from which to execute our strategy and drive long-term growth for the company.

The long-term stable nature of our licensing agreement, with over 90% of our revenue coming from long-term fixed fee agreements, gives us an incredibly strong platform from which to invest in our research, share our innovations through license, and deliver shareholder value. As some of you may be aware, Vivo is a top-tier global smartphone manufacturer with significant market share, which ships over 100 million devices per year. Our new agreement with Vivo, followed our new agreement with Oppo during the Q4 of last year, we now have seven of the top-tier largest smartphone vendors and almost 80% of the entire global smartphone market under license. The Vivo agreement also represents another significant step towards our goal of achieving $500 million in annual recurring revenue in our smartphone program by 2027.

Adding to our recent momentum, at the start of the second quarter, we also announced a new multi-year licensing agreement with HP, which licenses HP personal computers to our Wi-Fi and video decoding technologies. HP is one of the world's largest PC manufacturers. With this agreement, we have licensed more than 50% of the PC market. This is also another significant milestone as we keep on driving growth in our consumer electronics and IoT licensing program. I'm also pleased that both HP and Vivo licenses, like the vast majority of our license agreements, were signed through amicable negotiation. With the addition of Vivo and HP contracts, the cumulative total contract value that we have signed since 2021 is now more than $3.6 billion. As I mentioned in the prior earnings call, we are in a binding arbitration to settle the final terms of our license with Samsung for mobile devices.

The party finished all the hearing last October, and we expect to have a final decision soon. As a reminder, Samsung already agreed to take license to our portfolio starting from January 1st, 2023, and this binding arbitration will determine the final term of the license. In the first quarter, we built our strong track record of returning capital to shareholders by increasing our dividend from $0.45 to $0.60 per share. In fact, since Q3 of last year, we have increased our dividend by 50%. Our success in all our licensing program is only possible because of the quality of research and the leadership of engineers across wireless, video, and AI. InterDigital is one of the few companies that leads in the development of foundational technology in all these three areas.

In the first quarter, for the fourth year in a row, we were recognized by Clarivate as one of the world's top 100 innovators in analysis, which look at both the impact of our innovation today and its likely impact in the future. Our engineers are already closely involved in the early stage of 6G, which is beginning to take shape and which we believe will help to drive our growth across multiple verticals well into 2030. Also, in the first quarter, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we showcased the way in which we drive the evolution of wireless, video, and AI. At this year's event, senior engineers from each of our three labs demonstrated how our research is changing connectivity in areas like immersive video, sensing in wireless networks, and the optimization of AI applications.

In the first quarter, we also announced our two Inventors of the Year, with one from our wireless lab and the other from our video lab. We are a company of inventors, and as I tell our teams internally, our Inventor of the Year of the World is the most important accolade that we announce each year. Both of this year's winners are experienced engineers who have dedicated their career to make wireless networks smarter and more efficient, to improve connectivity in areas like IoT and XR, and to develop next-generation video through more advanced compression and wider deployment of AI. This dedication to research and our laser focus in technology that are foundational to how we connect, combined with our execution across our licensing programs, are what continue to differentiate InterDigital and give us such a powerful platform for growth.

I'll let Rich talk you through our first quarter numbers in more detail.

Rich Brezski (CFO)

Thanks, Liren. I'm pleased to report that 2025 is off to a great start, with Q1 revenue, Adjusted EBITDA, and non-GAAP EPS all exceeding the high end of our guidance range. This performance was powered by our new license agreement with Vivo, a top smartphone manufacturer based in China. The new agreement with Vivo, together with higher-than-expected variable royalties, drove total revenue of $211 million. This exceeds both our initial top-end guidance for Q1 total revenue of $116 million and our updated, increased top-end guidance of $206 million that we announced at the time we signed Vivo. This compares to our strong first quarter revenue of $264 million last year, when the signing of our Samsung TV license drove $160 million of catch-up revenue, albeit with related revenue share, which I'll cover in a moment.

Our annualized recurring revenue, or ARR, for the first quarter of 2025 increased 30% year-over-year to $503 million, which is a record level. The previously mentioned license with Vivo under our smartphone program led the way. In the past several years, we have rebuilt our revenue pipeline by renewing major licenses with Apple and Samsung, and we also added multiple leading smartphone vendors from China. We have grown our share of the smartphone market under license from about 50% to roughly 80%. As a result, we have made significant progress towards our goal of $500 million in ARR from smartphone by 2027, having increased smartphone revenue by $120 million. Our subscription-based IP as a service model offers a high level of visibility and provides a reliable source of cash flow, even in the face of an uncertain economic environment.

This enables us to continue to fuel our innovation engine and drive future revenue growth. Based on the strength of our intellectual property and the huge markets built upon it, we believe we are on track to grow ARR at a double-digit CAGR towards our 2030 target of $1 billion+. Our Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of nearly $160 million increased 22% year-over-year and equates to an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 76%, an increase of 27 points compared to 49% a year ago. The increase in Adjusted EBITDA margin was largely attributable to a decrease in operating expense, as most of the $69 million in rev share we reported in Q1 2024 related to the catch-up revenue under the Samsung TV agreement we signed last year. Non-GAAP EPS rose 18% year-over-year to $4.21 and exceeded our increased guidance of $3.66-$3.90 per share.

Cash from operations and free cash flow were negative in Q1, with outflows of $20 million and $47 million, respectively. As a reminder, this is not uncommon on a quarterly basis, and it's related to the timing of payments from our licensees. We continue to expect to have double-digit growth in free cash flow for 2025 over the strong levels we reported in 2024. The strong cash flow inherent in our business, combined with a cash balance of nearly $900 million, supports our capital allocation priorities. First, we aim to maintain, excuse me, we aim to maintain a strong balance sheet, as financial strength is a strategic asset. Second, we'll continue to make organic investments in the business, and in recent years, we've invested around 50% of recurring revenue into research and portfolio development.

Third, we will be opportunistic in exploring inorganic growth opportunities, though they are not required to achieve our 2030 financial targets. Fourth, we will continue returning excess cash to shareholders by way of share repurchases and dividends. In Q1, we returned $21 million to shareholders through buybacks and dividends. After accounting for additional share repurchases in April, we currently have approximately $216 million remaining on our buyback authorization. Looking forward to Q2, we already announced an important new agreement with HP that drives our expectations for another strong quarter. We expect Q2 revenues will be $165-$175 million from existing contracts, including catch-up sales. Based only on existing contracts, we expect an Adjusted EBITDA margin of about 65% and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $2.67-$2.90.

Our second quarter guidance does not include the impact of any new agreements or arbitration results we may sign or receive over the balance of the second quarter. Our strong first quarter results and our expectations for a strong Q2 have us well on track to meet our full year 2025 targets, and we are reaffirming our prior guidance of revenue in the range of $660-$760 million. We continue to expect Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $400-$495 million, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $9.69-$12.92. With that, I'll turn it back to Raiford.

Raiford Garrabrant (Head of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Rich. Before we move to Q&A, I'd like to mention that we'll be attending a number of investor events in Q2, including the William Blair Growth Conference in Chicago, the Baird Consumer Tech and Services Conference in New York City, the Bank of America Tech Conference in San Francisco, and the Roth London Conference. Please reach out to your representatives at those firms if you'd like to schedule a meeting. In addition, we are hosting our annual meeting of shareholders, which is virtual, on June 11 at 2:00 P.M. At this point, France, we are ready to take questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad, and to withdraw it, you just need to press star followed by the number one again. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute while asking your question. Just a reminder, we ask that you please limit your question to one with one follow-up only. Thank you. The first question comes from the line of Scott Searle from Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Liren, Rich, Raiford, congrats on getting Vivo across the finish line.

Rich Brezski (CFO)

Thanks, Scott.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Maybe just quickly too, I want to clarify on the Q2 guidance. These are all existing contracts that are in hand, so the big one that's happened so far in the quarter to date is HP. So that $40 million increase is HP and/or maybe other smaller accounts. Nothing coming in from anticipated Samsung arbitration or other Chinese-based OEMs. Is that correct?

Rich Brezski (CFO)

Yeah, that's right, Scott. So our Q2 guidance is set off existing contracts in hand today and does not include anything we may sign over the balance of the year, and I noted also does not include any arbitration results we may receive.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Gotcha. If I could, then I'll get back in the queue. Liren, maybe from a macro level, kind of the geopolitical environment, how that is impacting or not impacting discussions in terms of your timelines and engagement with those customers. Rich, on the convert, now it moves into current accounts. I think within the queue, you talk about it being at current price levels, maybe 3 million shares. I'm wondering if you could take us through kind of what you anticipate to happen as it relates to the convert, if you expect it to be convert, and how we should be treating that from an earnings basis going forward. Thanks.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, good morning, Scott. I'll take the first question. Regarding the macro geopolitical environment, as well as the current tariff situation, so far, we don't see any impact to our business. As you are aware, our business surrounding developing foundational technology, share them through open global standard process, and then licensing people primarily through long-term fixed fee agreement by its nature that does not really change quarter by quarter due to the fluctuation of shipment during the term of the contract. Obviously, the situation is fairly dynamic, and we are keeping really close monitoring of the situation.

Rich Brezski (CFO)

Scott, regarding the convert, while I'm current, it actually does not mature until spring of 2027. That is a function of where the stock price is and certain features in that. Typically, and where we have been in the money in the past, and my understanding more generally is typically those things do not convert early until they are even further in the money because the convert holders have optionality with the current instrument.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Rich, you don't have the ability to call it, is that correct?

Rich Brezski (CFO)

There are certain abilities over the term of that agreement. There is always, as we have done in the past, an ability to enter into a transaction. We always look in, this is always the case. We are always looking at our capital structure and figuring out what is the best next step. Nothing to report there, but something that we actively monitor.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much. I'll get back in the queue. Congrats on the quarter.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Thank you, Scott.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Anja Soderstrom from Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Anja Soderstrom (Financial Analyst of Equity Research and Small-Mid Cap Technology Sector)

Hi, and thank you for taking my question. Congrats on the great progress you're making here. I have a follow-up question on the Samsung arbitration. Do you have any—seems like that has been pushed out a bit. Do you have any sort of update there or any time frame?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. See, this is Liren. We currently do not have any new updates. As you are aware, the last hearing we done was late last year, October. Since then, the arbitrator panel has been essentially considering all the evidence and writing their decision. We remain confident about the merger case, but we do not have any new updates from them as of today.

Anja Soderstrom (Financial Analyst of Equity Research and Small-Mid Cap Technology Sector)

Okay. Thank you. In terms of the Disney litigation, what's going on there? Is anything happening, or is it going to be dragged out, do you think?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. The Disney litigation, as you are aware, we filed the litigation early February. Since then, we have some confirmation of the court dates, which generally starts in Q4 this year and expands into early next year. We are encouraged by all the dates that have been set promptly in different jurisdictions. We, again, look forward to demonstrating the merger case in the court proceedings.

Anja Soderstrom (Financial Analyst of Equity Research and Small-Mid Cap Technology Sector)

Okay. Thank you. You mentioned inorganic opportunities. How actively are you looking at that, and how is the market for that right now, do you see?

Rich Brezski (CFO)

Yeah. I did not mean to signal anything there, Anja. It is just really the natural order of our approach to capital allocation. It is maintain a strong balance sheet, organic investment, look at inorganic opportunities, and then return capital to shareholders. It is really just reciting the way that our long-standing strategy towards capital allocation.

Anja Soderstrom (Financial Analyst of Equity Research and Small-Mid Cap Technology Sector)

Okay. Thank you. That was all for me.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Blayne Curtis from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Blayne Curtis (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thanks. Same question and nice results, guys. I wanted to just drill in on the consumer IoT side. You have made some good progress. I was wondering if you can just walk us through the rest of the year in terms of your best prospects as well as milestones to be aware of there.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Blayne. Good morning. This is Liren. On the consumer IoT side, we continue to have the same multi-pillar approach. The largest opportunity continues to be the smart TV. As you are aware, we signed the largest opportunity in Samsung TV last year. We are actually working on multiple opportunities with LG, TCL, and Hisense, and three of them are essentially jumping for the number two position. We also announced with HP, we have more than 50% of the PC market under license. That is a very significant achievement for us. There is another collection of IoT opportunities in cellular space and non-cellular that we are pushing overall. The final thing I'll say is under our IoT program, we also have the connected car program, which we are a founding member for Avanti platform for both 4G and 5G.

Through that platform, we have achieved quite a few new license agreements on top of the 4G progress, which we were already over 80% coverage. There are more than half a dozen new 5G car vendors signed up in the last quarter also. We are making really good progress.

Blayne Curtis (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thanks for that. Just a modeling question, and I might be doing something wrong, but just trying to bridge EBITDA to EPS. Can you just comment on the tax rate in June? You have been kind of below—I have been penciling in 17%. You have been below that. Maybe just tax rate for the year and any other moving pieces on interest and shares with the convert?

Rich Brezski (CFO)

Yeah, sure. Yeah, the tax rate was low in the first quarter and projects a little bit lower for the year. Part of what's driving that is when we book our stock-based comp, we had an increase in the share price driven by the company's performance over the last year. When that vests, that results in a larger tax deduction and pushed down our rate a little bit for the quarter. That is projecting for a little bit lower overall for the year as a result. That's probably the primary thing that you're looking at. I think you asked about the dilution. I'll just mention that on GAAP EPS, it's, in my view, almost double-counting. You're counting the dilution on the convert and then all the dilution on the warrant without the benefit of the hedge that we have against the convert.

We make a denominator adjustment for that in our non-GAAP EPS. You can see all the details of that. There is a sensitivity table in the footnotes that describe that.

Blayne Curtis (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Before we proceed to the next question, again, if you want to join the queue to ask another question, simply press star one. Your next question comes from Arjun Bhatia from William Blair. Please go ahead.

Arjun Bhatia (Partner of Co-Head Tech Equity Research and Software Analyst)

Thank you. I'll add my congrats on getting the Vivo deal signed. Maybe one kind of broader question for you, Liren, on the video streaming opportunity. I think it was in March that there was a deal signed between Nokia and Amazon on video streaming. I'm curious, just as you look at your opportunity in this market, how that might impact either the Disney litigation or conversations that you're having with other streaming services and if this can be a catalyst maybe to speed up some of those negotiations and get those deals signed.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Arjun. Good morning. Yes, you are right. We have seen the public announcement of Nokia's deal with Amazon that covers their streaming services. From our perspective, we believe that's a good positive development for our whole industry. Obviously, Nokia and Amazon are both very large and sophisticated vendors. The fact that both parties recognizing large streaming functions requires to take a license of those relevant IPR is a good development. Having said that, though, I always believe that InterDigital licensing program rides on the merits of our own patent portfolio. We intend to demonstrate the value of our portfolio through our negotiation as well as enforcement process, particularly with Disney.

Arjun Bhatia (Partner of Co-Head Tech Equity Research and Software Analyst)

Okay. Understood. Thank you. Maybe again, a little bit of a broader question, but as we're thinking of your long-term smartphone goal of $500 million in recurring revenue, how do you think about how that might break down between what is dependent on your existing contracts, kind of getting an uplift at renewal versus just capturing the top 10? Because as you mentioned, you have seven of the top 10 smartphone OEMs already. Is the incremental growth just signing the remaining three, or is it getting uplifts as you renew Xiaomi, for example, or some other OEMs that might come up for renewal in the next few years here?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Arjun. Our goal to reach $500 million by 2027 for recurring is primarily based on our need to add the customer that's using our technology and sometimes for a very long period of time as a licensee. That's our primary tool to get to that target. Regarding renewals, we take every renewal very seriously, obviously, but we also look at how much they have benefited more over time. That's dependent on their market share changes, their product mix changes, and sometimes it also depends on our negotiation with them for different customer categories regarding product or what they have expanded to. It is a multi-parameter negotiation, and we always try to negotiate a deal that's fair to both parties that reflects the value of our IP. Back to your question, our smartphone licensing program is primarily based on our need to add those new customers.

Arjun Bhatia (Partner of Co-Head Tech Equity Research and Software Analyst)

All right. Perfect. Thank you, Liren.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this moment. I would like to turn the call back over to Liren Chen, Chief Executive Officer, for the closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Thank you, Operator. Before we close, I'd like to thank all our employees for their dedication and contribution to InterDigital, as well as our many partners and licensees for a strong quarter. Thank you to everyone who joined today's call, and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.