InterDigital - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 delivered record results: revenue $252.8M (+140% y/y), diluted EPS $4.09 (+190% y/y), Adjusted EBITDA $198.1M (+272% y/y), with performance above the company’s Q4 outlook; upside was driven by $136M catch-up from OPPO, Lenovo and ZTE agreements.
• Management introduced FY25 guidance (revenue $660–$760M; Non-GAAP EPS $9.69–$12.92) and increased the quarterly dividend 33% to $0.60; Q1 2025 outlook was later raised on Mar 6 after signing a major Chinese smartphone license (revenue $202–$206M; Non-GAAP EPS $3.66–$3.90).
• Strategic catalysts include Disney streaming enforcement actions (multi-jurisdiction litigation), pending Samsung mobile arbitration decision, and continuing smartphone and CE/IoT license momentum; management targets ARR growth and strong free cash flow in 2025.
• S&P Global consensus estimates were unavailable at time of request; comparisons reference company outlook and actuals; estimate-driven beats/misses will be reassessed when access is restored (S&P Global data unavailable).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Record quarter and year: Q4 revenue $252.8M and FY revenue $868.5M, with Non-GAAP EPS $5.15 in Q4 and $14.97 for FY; Adjusted EBITDA margin reached 78% in Q4 and 63% for FY.
  • Licensing momentum: OPPO license, ZTE renewal, binding arbitration agreement with Lenovo; ~70% of global smartphone market now under license. CEO: “We have now licensed top 4 largest smartphone manufacturers, and approximately 70% of annual smartphone shipment worldwide.”.
  • Cash generation and capital returns: Q4 operating cash flow $192M; Q4 free cash flow $169M; nearly $1.9B cumulative capital returned since 2011; dividend raised to $0.60.

• What Went Wrong

  • Q3 sequential softness from lower catch-ups and Huawei expiration before rebounding in Q4; Q3 revenue $128.7M (-8% y/y), Adjusted EBITDA $64.8M (-22% y/y).
  • Non-GAAP EPS in Q4 came in below guidance due to higher convert-related dilution at a higher share price and lower-than-expected non-GAAP adjustments, despite strong GAAP EPS (CFO commentary).
  • Streaming monetization still early; management initiated Disney litigation and does not expect material 2025 revenue from services, indicating timeline/visibility risk.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the InterDigital Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Raiford Garrabrant, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Raiford Garrabrant (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Michelle, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to InterDigital's Fourth Quarter 2024 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 factor section 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)

Thank you, Raiford. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. A year ago, at this moment, I shared our belief that InterDigital has never been better positioned to drive growth. Now, sitting here 12 months later, I'm delighted to share that in 2024, we delivered the best business result in our history, and since our technology is more critical than ever to an ecosystem generating roughly $6 trillion in economic value every year, we believe we are just getting started. Today, I'll recap the fourth quarter result, summarizing our highlights for the full year and provide more details on our growth path through 2025 and beyond, including a significant development in our video service program. In the fourth quarter, we delivered another outstanding performance. Our revenue increased 140% year over year to $253 million, while adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP EPS nearly quadrupled year over year.

As we discussed in our last earnings call, we signed a new license agreement with Oppo last quarter, covering the worldwide sales of Oppo, Realme, and OnePlus devices. We have now licensed the world's top four largest smartphone manufacturers and approximately 70% of annual smartphone shipment worldwide. We also added to the momentum in our smartphone program in the quarter through our renewal agreement with a major Chinese technology company, ZTE, and with our announcement that we have entered into binding arbitration with Lenovo to determine the final terms of our license and ended all litigations with them. Looking at 2024 overall, it was another outstanding 12 months for the company. Revenue for the year increased almost 60% to $869 million, the highest annual revenue in the company's history, thanks to increased momentum across all our licensing programs and the new agreement with some of the world's largest device makers.

We also delivered record-level adjusted EBITDA and EPS in 2024. Rich will cover those financial results in more detail in his section. Across our licensing programs, we closed 14 new agreements throughout the year. In addition to our smartphone license with Oppo and ZTE, we signed a new license with Google, covering a range of devices, as well as a new license with leading TV manufacturers, Samsung and TPV, in our consumer electronics and IoT program. We have now closed license agreements worth more than $3.3 billion since the start of 2021. In 2024, more than 30% of our revenue for the year comes from consumer electronics and IoT program. This highlights the upside we see beyond our smartphone program and reflects how our video and wireless technology supports an expanding range of use cases.

As you may recall, we are in a binding arbitration to settle the final terms of our license with Samsung for mobile devices. The parties finished the last round of hearings last October, and we are expecting to have a final decision soon. As a reminder, Samsung already agreed to take a license to our portfolio starting from January 1st of 2023, and this binding arbitration will determine the final terms of the license. Our research teams are firing on all cylinders as we grow our leadership in the development of key standards, maintain our focus on quality of our innovation, and break new ground in the application of cutting-edge technology such as AI. We have been working on the application of AI to wireless and video for years, and our leadership in the space was once again to the fore throughout 2024.

In December, we received an Innovation Award from Fierce Wireless for outstanding innovation in wireless-related AI. Specifically, the award was for AI-empowered receiver design for 6G communication. We choose AI and machine learning to improve the performance of a wireless network. From AI to video, wireless, and licensing, our industry leadership extends across the whole business. We hold more than 100 leadership positions in standard organizations, and we are one of only three companies in the world to hold multiple chair positions within 3GPP, the standard body that sets cellular standards. In licensing, our Chief Licensing Officer, Eeva Hakoranta, was named among 50 most influential people in intellectual property by a leading IP publication. We continue to excel, converting our research leadership into patent assets, building on what we firmly believe is one of the strongest patent portfolios in our industry.

In 2024, we made more than 5,000 new patent filings worldwide, with our global portfolio now over 33,000 assets. The strength of our innovation was once again confirmed as we were named one of the world's 100 most innovative companies for third consecutive year by LexisNexis. We were also named among the world's leading patent holders in 5G, advanced video compression, and Wi-Fi in separate reports from LexisNexis. Also, in 2024, we outlined a clear path to significantly increase our revenue and profit at our Investor Day, where we announced new targets of more than $1 billion in annual recurring revenue and $600 million in adjusted EBITDA by 2030. Now turning to 2025, with a strong foundation to build on from last year, our priority is to continue to execute our long-term growth strategy. We believe our technology is more valuable in an increasingly connected world.

We lead the development of standardized technology that is implemented in billions of devices every year, and we have a proven track record to convert our research and patent leadership into new license agreements. We plan to grow our business by focusing on signing the remaining unlicensed smartphone vendors and by renewing our existing agreement at a higher level when appropriate. We will build on our considerable progress in our consumer electronics and IoT program, and we intend to make more progress in our greenfield opportunity in video services. We feel strongly that our video technology underpins the viability of the video streaming industry, helping to support more efficient video compression, improving the quality of pictures, and enhancing the user experience. This week, we initiated a multi-jurisdictional enforcement action against Disney, including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, for their ongoing infringement of our intellectual property.

Disney generated about $25 billion in streaming services revenue from over 250 million paying subscribers in FY24. As in all our licensing programs, we expect the vast majority of license agreements to be driven by amicable negotiations, but we are always prepared to defend the value of our innovation and our patent rights. We believe that the significant investment in fundamental research over the past several decades should be compensated fairly, which enables us to continue to invest in the next-generation innovation that will benefit our customers and consumers worldwide in the future. Before I hand it over to Rich, I hope to see many of you who can make it to the Mobile World Congress in March. Please join us at our booth in Hall 5 to see the very latest in wireless, video, and AI innovation.

With that, I'll let Rich talk you through the numbers in more detail.

Rich Brezski (EVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Thanks, Liren. As Liren noted, in Q4, we delivered an outstanding finish to the year. Total revenue of $253 million increased 140% year over year and was above our outlook of $239-$249 million, driven primarily by new agreements that closed after the prior guidance. Our Q4 revenue included catch-up revenue of $136 million related to our fourth quarter license agreements with Oppo, Lenovo, and ZTE. Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter of $198 million exceeded the top end of the outlook of $180-$190 million, as the vast majority of the revenue upside flowed through and resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 78%. GAAP EPS for the quarter of $4.09 beat our guidance. Non-GAAP EPS for the quarter of $5.15 came in below our guidance due to greater dilution from the converts on account of our higher share price and lower-than-expected non-GAAP adjustments for Q4.

However, for the full year, both GAAP EPS of $12.07 and non-GAAP EPS of $14.97 came in at or above the high end of the range. Meanwhile, cash generation for the quarter was exceptionally strong, with cash flow operations of $192 million and free cash flow of $169 million. Building on Liren's comments, I'll highlight a few noteworthy metrics from our full year 2024 results and provide the additional perspective of how each item has improved over the last four years. Altogether, these metrics demonstrate our success in progressing towards our objective of delivering $1 billion plus in annual recurring revenue and $600 million plus of adjusted EBITDA by 2030. Total revenue accelerated to $869 million, an increase of 58% year over year, resulting in a compound annual growth rate of 25% over the past four years.

Our 2024 revenue included $269 million of CE IoT revenue, more than triple prior year levels. This result, which includes our milestone agreement with Samsung TV, demonstrates our ability to grow revenue by capitalizing on the value that foundational technologies bring to markets beyond smartphones. Adjusted EBITDA margin was very strong again in 2024, coming in at 63%, a 20-point improvement over the past four years. Over that same time frame, adjusted EBITDA has grown more than three and a half times. We ended the year with almost $1 billion in cash, including net cash of over $500 million, which is up more than $100 million from last year. Full year cash flow continued to be robust, with $272 million of cash from operations and $213 million of free cash flow for the year.

In fact, over the last four years, we have generated nearly three-quarters of a billion in free cash flow. These strong cash flows allowed us to return $110 million to shareholders through buybacks and dividends and $126 million to holders of our 24 notes upon their maturity last spring. Over the last four years, we have returned the vast majority of our free cash flow to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends, totaling $678 million. In that time, we have reduced our outstanding share count by 5.1 million shares, or 17%, to 25.7 million shares at the end of 2024. Turning to our outlook, we have guided to another very strong year in 2025, with total revenue in the range of $660-$760 million, adjusted EBITDA of $400-$495 million, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $9.69-$12.92.

In addition, we expect to improve upon the strong free cash flow we delivered in 2024. As we anticipate the resolution of an outstanding arbitration and continued success from our licensing efforts, we'll drive double-digit growth in free cash flow for 2025. With that as a backdrop, our board of directors approved a 33% increase in our dividend from $0.45 to $0.60 per share. As a reminder, we begin the year with $230 million remaining on our buyback authorization. Between the increased dividend and our commitment to continued share buybacks, we expect to have another strong year of returning capital to shareholders in 2025. You will see in our financial metrics that we have also begun to present annualized recurring revenue. This metric simply annualizes the recurring revenue for a given quarter.

For example, in Q4, we had $117 million of recurring revenue, so multiply that by four, and you get $468 million of ARR, which is by far a record level. Over the last four years, we have increased our ARR at a double-digit growth rate, from $314 million at the start of 2021 to $468 million at the end of 2024. As we begin 2025, we do have a small step down due to 2024 year-end expirations, but we expect to drive renewals and agreements this year to close 2025 with double-digit growth in ARR from the $468 million level at which we concluded 2024. Before I turn it back to Raiford, I want to reiterate that our quarterly guidance for Q125 does not include the impact of any new agreements or arbitration results we may sign or receive over the balance of the first quarter.

This is because it is harder to predict the timing of new agreements in short windows. In contrast, our full year guidance includes contributions from both new agreements and arbitration results. As was the case last year, we believe we can achieve the financial results within our full year guided range through different combinations of new agreements and arbitration results. 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 Q1, including the Roth Conference in Dana Point, California, and the Sidoti Conference, which is virtual. Please reach out to your representatives at those firms if you'd like to schedule a meeting. Michelle, we are now ready to take questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up before returning to the queue. One moment for our first question. Our first question is going to come from the line of Scott Searle with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Congrats on the quarter, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Liren, maybe just to dive in on the Disney front, I'm wondering if you could put some parameters around the timing of when you would expect this to progress and kind of the milestones there. Also, if you could address your engagement with other video streaming vendors and opportunities as they're ongoing within 2025, kind of the level of engagement that you're seeing.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hi, good morning, Scott. Thanks for the question. So regarding Disney, it's public now in our legal filings. We have engaged Disney for more than two and a half years in bilateral negotiation. And as you know, we prefer to sign most of our deals through amicable discussions. But we have concluded after spending two and a half years negotiating that enforcement is needed for this particular case. And as you probably know, in our enforcement, when we started filing the case, we are fully committed to leading it through the course of the lawsuits. But as in any other cases, also, we are always open for negotiation during the lawsuits. So it's difficult for me to predict precisely how long the lawsuits may last. As you probably know from our smartphone experience, sometimes it can be fairly quickly resolved and sometimes takes multiple years to resolve.

As of this case, as of now, I actually do not really know for sure how long this case will take. Regarding engagement with other streaming service providers, as we have discussed before in our investor day, we have engaged with almost all the major players, and we are patient in demonstrating our value to them, and we hope to make progress, as always, through bilateral negotiation.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Thanks. That's very helpful. Maybe shifting to the annual guidance, I know this is a very difficult one to pin down, but could you provide some color in terms of the range of outcomes, how you're thinking about it in terms of catch-up sales versus how we would be exiting the year from a recurring revenue standpoint? I know that there are probably multiple different ways to get there, but if you could kind of help us frame it a little bit. And as part of that, Rich, as we're looking to the first quarter and that recurring revenue guidance, I think it's 112-116. I know there are some expirations this year. I think in the K, you talk about seven agreements for a total of $91 or $92 million. How much of that is layering into the first quarter recurring guidance?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Scott, let me take on the majority of the open opportunities, and then I'll have Rich adding on the details for the recurring revenue numbers. So if you look at our 2025 major opportunity here, you know we have three major programs. On the smartphone side, with our momentum for signing Oppo and frankly, ZTE and others, we really only have less than a handful of major opportunities we need to sign. The largest one is Vivo, as you are aware. Then we need to essentially resolve Honor and probably Transsion. Not necessarily in that order, by the way. We are engaging with all of them in parallel. On the consumer electronics IoT side, we have built a lot of momentum. As Rich has covered in his section, we see a tremendous amount of growth in multiple verticals.

But our priority number one is to frankly signing some of the larger TV makers, as well as making progress in different segments of vertical for IoT. For the service industry, as we already touched on here, we actually do not expect any material revenue for 2025. But it's important for us to engage in the major players and build a multi-year negotiating progress. And obviously, we already touched on the enforcement with Disney.

Rich Brezski (EVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Yeah. And Scott, I'll just add to that that in my comments, I noted that we ended 2024 with $468 million of ARR. And we're looking to, through renewals and new agreements, drive double-digit growth in that ARR number by the end of 2025. As to Q1, you noted correctly that at the end or over the course of 2025, and I'll say typically agreements are calendar year-based, not always, but typically, that we have $91 million of expirations in 2025, again, typically at the end of the year. So that's really not an impact in the couple million dollar difference between recurring revenue in Q4 stepping down to Q1. That's really driven by 2024 expirations. I think we noted we had five 2024 expirations totaling $17 million, which that math kind of shows you that that's the majority of that step down.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Very helpful.

Lastly, if I could, just on the capital structure and the convert, Rich, could you take us through what you're factoring in for the first quarter and how that will progress in terms of interest expense, the fully diluted share impact, and also how you're thinking about the capital structure in general? I think when you first initiated a convert years ago, it was to be able to have a robust balance sheet to be able to litigate against potential customers like Disney. Now, given that you've got $500 million of net cash, is that a mechanism and an instrument that you guys need to have in the future going forward? Thanks.

Rich Brezski (EVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Sure. So let me take the first part of that question, and I'll get to the kind of structure as we see it going forward.

In the first quarter or in any quarter, we're factoring in interest income and interest expense, and we're not really looking at that much differently than we have in recent quarters. We also, as you alluded to, need to factor in any potential dilution from the convert or the related hedge. There, that becomes a function of the stock price. Typically, we're looking at what the stock price is around the time that we post that guidance. And I know you're aware of this, but for everybody's benefit, in our 10-K, as in our Qs, in the footnotes to our financial statements, we have a sensitivity table that shows how that dilution is impacted at different prices. Again, there's greater dilution on the convert itself, which we reduce through the hedge. And on the far right column, you'll see the net dilution from the warrants that we issue.

As for the capital structure in general, yeah, we've, for more than 10 years, been utilizing convertibles to help bolster the balance sheet that enables us to go toe-to-toe with larger customers when necessary if we need to enforce our rights while being able to buy back stock and return capital to shareholders. Because we're just in a much different position than even when we did the last convertible in the spring of 2022, I think we have more options available to us going forward. Not to say we make any predictions on what we'll do there. I'm just saying that we enjoy having more optionality in how we look at our capital structure.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much. I'll get back in queue.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Rich Brezski (EVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Thanks, Scott.

Operator (participant)

One moment as we move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Arjun Bhatia with William Blair. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Arjun Bhatia (Co-Group Head of Technology, Media, and Communications)

Perfect. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you taking the question here. Maybe I'll start first on the streaming opportunity. It's good to see that there is kind of litigation, and we're somewhat far down the monetization path of your video technology. Liren, one question I have on this is, for smartphones, I think we all kind of understand how the economics work, right? It's largely based on kind of units of smartphones sold with a royalty rate. When we're looking at the streaming opportunity, how should we think about kind of the underlying metric that we should get grounded in for some sort of a royalty rate with Disney, for example, right? You mentioned $25 billion in streaming revenue and I think $250 million subscribers. Is it more on the per-minute stream? Is it the number of subscribers? Is it a revenue rate?

How are you thinking you might monetize this opportunity here?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Hey, Arjun, good morning. Thank you for the question. So on the streaming side here, we are actually flexible in negotiating with our customers based on what is the right metric to use. If you look at fundamentally, we bring a set of very important technologies that we believe underpin their services. That's both in driving their revenue forward as well as saving cost on the operating side in terms of storage, power, as well as cooling and internet services here. And by the way, various different streaming services may have different business models. Some of them are subscription-based. Some of them may be advertisement-sponsor-based. So when we go approach them, fundamentally, we try to charge for a very small but fair price for what we bring to the table that enables their services.

So that can be subscription-based, where we will get a small percentage of their monthly subscription fee times the number of subscribers. All that can be a fairly small percentage of the overall revenue. We are actually open for both arrangements. Regarding the overall size of the market, and as we have discussed in our investor day, and we project based on third-party data that by 2027, the streaming industry overall will be the same size of the smartphone industry. And Arjun, as you are aware on the smartphone side, which, as you commented on, we have demonstrated a lot of progress, and frankly, we have shown a lot of solid results in that industry. We are projecting getting about $500 million in recurring revenue from the smartphone.

But for the streaming services, even though we believe our technology is just as important to them because it's relatively new, because we believe we have to demonstrate our patience, and so therefore, we are, in my opinion, concertedly setting the target to be about $300 million by 2030 for that market to essentially mature for us over time.

Arjun Bhatia (Co-Group Head of Technology, Media, and Communications)

Okay. Understood. Very helpful. Thanks, Liren. One if I can follow up just on the recurring revenue outlook for 2025. It sounds like you're baking in some incremental upsell and maybe arbitration agreements. With some of these agreements in particular, do you have kind of a sense of the range of uplift that you're expecting from Samsung, which I think should be coming relatively soon? How should we benchmark the potential uplift that you could see there if that's announced in Q1 or Q2 here?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Arjun, this is Liren. So I'll cover it first if there's anything else Rich might be able to chime in. So on the recurring revenue side, Rich commented we'll target to grow our recurring revenue in 2025 by at least double-digit growth. But that's also not based on any single deal or any single outcome. So we have a number of opportunities we are pursuing. And by the way, a number of those opportunities carry both recurring revenue as well as cash-out payment. So we really look at all the opportunities holistically and we frankly estimate an outcome for per case as well as the likelihood that they will be done this year. So this is the same process we took last year. So that's why we frankly add them up into a range of outcomes here.

Regarding the Samsung arbitration outcome, as I commented on earlier, we have spent substantial amount of effort to go through the process already. As a matter of fact, the last hearing happened last October already, and at that time, the arbitrator told us they will take time to essentially make their decision, writing their conclusion, and due to the holiday season in between, so basically, they told us that it will be after New Year, so we are waiting for the outcome, and as I commented earlier here, that can be soon, but we don't really know precisely what time. Regarding the outcome of the range, we commented before in our prior calls, we believe strongly that the value of portfolio has gone up substantially due to the last contract, and if you look at the most closest comparable, we believe we should realize in the uplifting of the value.

But this is for the arbitrator to decide, and we are currently just waiting for the result.

Arjun Bhatia (Co-Group Head of Technology, Media, and Communications)

All right. Wonderful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, and one moment as we move on to our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Tal Liani with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Tal, your line might be on mute.

Tal Liani (Technology Analyst)

Can you hear me?

Operator (participant)

We can now, sir.

Tal Liani (Technology Analyst)

Oh, perfect. Thanks. Once again, you're beating the numbers by a significant amount, and I don't think you ever reported a number that is even remotely close to your guidance. It's so hard to predict the numbers. So I want to focus on the recurring part, and I have two questions. On the recurring, you said that ARR should grow double digits. Are the trends in revenues different than ARR? Meaning, is there any deviation between revenue growth and ARR growth, and what could be the reasons for that? And the second question is, you noted $70 million that expired in 2024 and $91 million expected to expire in 2025. What happens with these expirations? Are they renewed before, renewed after? How does it go with these expirations of recurring revenues? Thanks.

Rich Brezski (EVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Okay. Hey, thanks, Tal. This is Rich. Let me start with the first question. I think maybe Liren will have a comment for the second question, and I may have an additional point to make there. So yeah, I guess the first point to emphasize, when we issue quarterly guidance, and I mentioned this in my prepared remarks again today, it's difficult for us over a short window to determine what the time period when exactly a new agreement will cross the line. Our customers are already using our technology. So it's not like we know that they need to make a decision so they can produce their product and ship it on a certain deadline. They're already using it. And it's really then a function of when can we reach an agreement to them on the fair amount that they should pay us.

So as a consequence, on our quarterly guidance, we typically are not including the potential for new agreements. And therefore, typically on a quarterly basis, if we sign a new agreement, we'll come in higher. For the full-year guidance, we did initiate for the first time full-year guidance last year in 2024. We thought that we came out with a very strong number for 2024 in full-year guidance. But frankly, we just had, as we discussed on the call here, an outstanding year, and we're able to raise it and then beat that. So we're thrilled about the performance we delivered in 2024, and we're very happy to feel confident we can come out with strong numbers again for 2025. So hopefully that helps.

As far as recurring revenue versus total, looking back, I mentioned on my call over the last four years, we've had a double-digit CAGR in total revenue because we have been signing new agreements and been getting catch-up sales along with it, but importantly, we've also had a double-digit CAGR over that time period in ARR, and I like ARR where we've added it to our metrics. One problem with recurring, we signed Oppo in the fourth quarter of 2024, and it contributes one quarter of recurring revenue, even though there's catch-up sales associated with it. So I think if you look at 2024 recurring revenue, it's not factoring that in. If you look at the ARR where we close 2024 at $468 million, that's kind of a better measure in my mind of kind of what we're earning on a recurring basis.

I'll let Liren start with a response to the second comment.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Tal. Good morning. Thank you for joining us here. So on the recurring versus sometimes we have expiration for contract here. I mean, number one, it's absolutely normal to have a certain amount of contract expires each year. And frankly, because we have signed so many agreements, right? We have signed 14 agreements this year. Our average contract length is roughly around five years. Sometimes it's longer, sometimes it'd be shorter. So on any given year, we will have a few contract expires. So for last year to this year, we have $17 million expiration. That's one seven. So it's actually a relatively small number from last year to this year. So our goal, honestly, is always try to get them renewed before they expire. And sometimes those expirations can frankly fall.

End of the year, which happens to be holiday time, that's difficult for various different reasons to get them done in time. So it can be frankly pulled over to the next year. For this year, for 2025, at the end of this year, I want to make sure you guys are aware. We do disclose in our, I think, 10-K filing, we have about $91 million expiration, primarily driven by our Xiaomi contract that's up for renewal at the end of this year. So I won't be able to comment on specific negotiations because they are covered by NDAs. But what we typically do, Tal, is for major agreements, we start roughly six months to a year ahead of time.

We demonstrate the value of our technology, show them the growth for the portfolio, as well as demonstrate to them how they have benefited more this time compared to the time of the last contract, and then when it's appropriate, which we have demonstrated through multiple contracts here, we'll try to get a higher value in the renewal if they have benefited more, so that's the general practice, Tal, and we have demonstrated in the last four or five years, we had a good track record of renewing large contracts, including the largest contract for Apple before they expire, and that's what we always target to do.

Tal Liani (Technology Analyst)

So when you give the guidance for this year, do you assume that the $17 million that expired last year would be renewed this year? Do you assume renewal of the expired ones, or is it excluded also from the numbers?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Tal, the way we do New Year forecast is we actually look at all the open opportunities, including on-site customers as well as renewals. By the way, we are not trying to target for replacing dollar for dollars. We are trying to renew the customer one by one when they come up due. And as you are aware, Tal, some of the customers gain market share over the years. Some of them may lose market share. Some of them may have a higher mix of 5G devices. They may have gone up in terms of average selling prices. We factor in all those parameters. Therefore, we are not trying to replace every dollar from every customer, but we are trying to renew them. And frankly, when they benefit more, we try to get a higher valuation out of that new contract. That's normally how it works.

So for this year, when we give the guidance, Tal, as I mentioned earlier, we try to look at all the open opportunities and try to obviously drive them to closure as much as we can. But we also know some of those agreements take longer to renew than others. And some of the first-time customers, frankly, try to solve their past sales can be a difficult and complex negotiation. So internally, we assign a certain amount of probability and a certain amount of range of outcome for each of the cases. And then in total, we give ourselves what we call internally multi-paths to get to the result by targeting a range.

Tal Liani (Technology Analyst)

Yeah. Okay. One last question. Geopolitics. A lot of your customers are coming from China. All the situation, all the geopolitical tension between China and the U.S., do you expect it to have an impact on your contracts, elongate them, or any other type of impact?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Tal, that's a great question. So as we all know, geopolitics is always in the macro environment we consider. But there are several things to keep in mind. Number one, our technology is global. Our technology is built in the open standard that is frankly developed by industry associations. So that technology itself is open. It's not subject to any export license control. And frankly, not a single government, including U.S. or Chinese governments, truly own that standard. So that's always open. That's a starting point. The second one is really most of the open opportunities we are trying to pursue are from large customers who have international business, right? Their sales are driven by many different things. And frankly, if you look at smartphone industry in particular, those large customers always value domestic industry as well as foreign markets.

And they want it to be big and good. So that's a healthy dynamic for us. The third one, which is really important for me, is I spent a substantial amount of time in frankly D.C.s and Brussels and other capitals, including Beijing and other places here, informing policymakers why our business model is pro-competition. Why our business model is good for them. It's good for their country. It's good for the consumers. It's good for the vendors who are benefiting tremendously from our fundamental innovation. That's what enables those vendors to come into play, leveraging what we have developed and becoming global competitors relatively fast. So frankly, we have done a good job explaining our business model. And I'll tell you, Tal, that our support across different countries is actually quite strong.

Tal Liani (Technology Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Anya Soderstrom with Sidoti. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Anja Soderstrom (Financial Analyst)

Hi. And thank you for taking my questions. Actually, most of them have been directed already. And congrats on the great performance here. When we went into 2024, you gave the guidance or yeah, you gave the guidance for the year. And it seemed like you gave a guidance that was a little bit modest going into the year, which makes sense. But are you doing the same approach this year, you think, or?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

So Anya, let me take the broader question here. I'll ask Rich to chime in if need to be. So as I explained earlier, right, so we try to take a holistic view of all the open opportunities. And each opportunity, we essentially associate a likelihood of completion in the year as well as a range of possible valuations. And if it's a renewal, we assign obviously a certain amount of recurring revenue. If it's brand new, on-site customers here, we also have to estimate how much catch-up payment we can get from that deal. And frankly, the timing and the dollar amount are hard to pin down with a long lead time, right? But we obviously wanted to give enough visibility into it. So our process generally is beginning of the year, we do the best we can to come up the range.

And then as larger deals happen throughout the year, as we have demonstrated last year, and if we have done more or better or faster, we'll provide guidance accordingly to either update it or give you the latest information. That's a general approach we take. And so I don't know if there's anything Rich wanted to add.

Rich Brezski (EVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

No, I think that covers it.

Anja Soderstrom (Financial Analyst)

Okay. Thank you. And then just to follow up on the geopolitical environment here with the new administration, do you feel like the sentiment has changed in any way with your counterparts, or?

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah, that's a great question, Anya. So if you look at the new administration for the U.S., traditionally, as I think many of you guys are aware, Republicans are stronger in IP protection in general. And again, I'm not specifically commenting on any specific person or anything. So we believe it's generally a good thing for IP licensing. But we are still at the beginning of the new administration. And by the way, we historically have a close working relationship with both administrations in the last decades or more. So we continue to build this relationship. We demonstrate to them why our business is good for the U.S., why our technology leadership is important to U.S. technology leadership, as well as in the future of our country. So those are pretty well received. And I expect strong support going forward.

Anja Soderstrom (Financial Analyst)

Okay. Thank you. That was all for me.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. And I would now like to hand the conference back over to Liren Chen for any further remarks.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, thank you, operator. Before we close, I'd like to thank our employees for their dedication and contribution in the digital, as well as many partners and licensees for a record year in 2024. I also thank you, everyone, who joined us today, and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. And you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Liren Chen (President and CEO)

Thank you.