Monolithic Power Systems - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 delivered record revenue of $621.7M (+0.2% q/q, +36.9% y/y) with non-GAAP EPS of $4.09 (roughly flat q/q) and stable gross margins; GAAP EPS spiked to $29.88 due to a one-time $1.3B tax benefit recognition.
• End-market strength was led by Enterprise Data ($194.9M, +51% y/y) and Automotive ($128.3M, +43% y/y), while Storage & Computing and Communications also grew double-digits y/y; Consumer and Industrial improved y/y but declined sequentially.
• Q1 2025 guidance: revenue $610–$630M; GAAP GM 55.1–55.7%; non-GAAP GM 55.4–56.0%; GAAP opex $180.2–$186.2M; non-GAAP opex $126.9–$130.9M; non-GAAP tax rate 15% for 2025; FD shares 47.8–48.2M.
• Capital return is a notable catalyst: quarterly dividend raised 25% to $1.56/share and a new $500M buyback authorized through 2028, following completion of a prior $640M program in Q4 2024.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Enterprise Data growth tied to AI/server power solutions; segment revenue up 51% y/y in Q4 and full-year Enterprise Data up 122% to $716.2M, reflecting strong product ramps and diversification across hyperscalers.
• Automotive strength with broad-based momentum (ADAS, infotainment); Q4 revenue up 15% q/q and 43% y/y; management reiterated confidence in 48V platforms and multi-year adoption beyond EVs.
• Shareholder returns: dividend increased to $1.56/share and new $500M buyback; prior $640M buyback fully executed in Q4; management highlighted returning 86% of FCF over three years via buybacks/dividends.

Management quotes:

• “Our proven, long-term growth strategy remains intact as we continue our transformation from being a chip-only, semiconductor supplier to a full service, silicon-based solutions provider.” – CEO Michael Hsing.
• “We remain cautiously optimistic, but our momentum is certainly in the right direction.” – CFO Bernie Blegen.

What Went Wrong

• Sequential softness expected in Enterprise Data for Q1; management anticipates a flattish Enterprise Data year in 2025 weighted to the back half, citing customer ordering volatility and second sourcing dynamics.
• Communications segment down 11% q/q in Q4 due to networking softness (partly offset by optical strength), illustrating lumpiness in newer product ramps.
• Operating cash flow fell to $167.7M from $231.7M q/q, and cash/short-term investments declined to $862.9M due to share repurchases; inventories remain elevated in dollars albeit improving in days.

Transcript

Moderator (participant)

Welcome, everyone, to the MPS Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Webinar. My name is Genevieve Cunningham, and I will be the moderator for this webinar. Joining me today are Michael Hsing, CEO and founder of MPS; Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO; and Tony Balow, Vice President of Finance. Earlier today, along with our earnings announcement, MPS released a written commentary on the results of our operations. Both documents can be found on our website. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that in the course of today's presentation, we may make forward-looking statements and projections within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. That involves risk and uncertainty.

Risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements are identified in the Safe Harbor Statements contained in the Q4 2024 earnings release and in our SEC filings, including our Form 10-K, which can be found on our website. Our statements are made as of today, and we assume no obligation to update this information. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Bernie Blegen.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Jen. Good afternoon and welcome to our Q4 2024 earnings call. In 2024, MPS posted its 13th consecutive year of growth with full-year revenue of $2.2 billion, up 21% from 2023. For Q4 2024, we had record quarterly revenue of $621.7 million above Q3 2024 and 37% higher than the fourth quarter of 2023. This performance reflected the strength of our diversified market strategy, consistent execution, continued innovation, and strong customer focus. Let me call out a few highlights from 2024. We introduced a silicon carbide inverter for high-powered clean energy applications. Additional revenue is expected to ramp in late 2025. Other silicon carbide-based applications are expected to be introduced in multiple geographies during both 2025 and 2026. We developed a family of high-quality, cost-effective automotive audio products utilizing DSP technology from our 2024 Axign acquisition powered by MPS Solutions.

For enterprise notebooks, we launched a battery management solution and are sampling a new multi-phase power stage. These products enable faster charge time and significantly improve notebook battery life. Building on our first analog-to-digital converter design win in 2024, we are developing new high-accuracy 24-bit converters, which are expected to ramp in the second half of 2025. MPS continues to focus on innovation, solving our customers' most challenging problems, and maintaining the highest level of quality. We continue to invest in new technology, expand into new markets, and to diversify our end-market applications and global supply chain. This will allow us to capture future growth opportunities, maintain supply chain stability, and swiftly adapt to market changes as they occur. Finally, I'm pleased to announce our quarterly dividend will increase 25%-$1.56 per share and during Q4 2024, we completed share repurchases under a 2023 $640 million authorization.

This week, our Board of Directors authorized a new $500 million three-year share repurchase program. For the three years ending December 2024, MPS has returned 86% of its free cash flow to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends paid. Our proven long-term growth strategy remains intact as we continue our transformation from being a chip-only semiconductor supplier to a full-service silicon-based solutions provider. I will now open the webinar up for questions.

Moderator (participant)

Thank you, Bernie. Analysts, I would now like to begin our Q&A session. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please click on the participants icon on the menu bar and then click the raise hand button. Our first question is from Tore Svanberg of Stifel. Tore, your line is now open.

Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yes, thank you and congratulations on the solid results. Either Michael or Bernie, could you talk a little bit about the dynamics here in the March quarter, especially by segment? You know, obviously, we know some end markets are still soft, yet others are actually quite healthy. So any more color on how you see the various segments in the March quarter would be really helpful.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Sure. As far as our Q1 outlook, I think we need to take the perspective that relative to the size of the market, we're a fairly small player, but we have a lot of greenfield design wins which have been previously delayed that are now starting to ramp as we enter 2025, so when we look at two of the areas that are going to drive most of the growth in the quarter, automotive is continuing to grow, and communications, where we launched some new products in Q3, are bouncing back from Q4 and will continue strong.

Memory's demand profile is also very good, and notebooks look to be having a Q1 uplift. We don't know for sure, but we've had many design wins and believe that those are coming into the market. On industrial consumer, we have a lot of new product ramps, but those are likely to start to contribute at the end of 2025, and on the enterprise data, we'll be down.

Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Very good. And as my follow-up on enterprise data, how should we think about that business throughout calendar 2025? Again, obviously, a lot of different dynamics, you know, different players. You know, the growth trajectory for that business throughout calendar 2025. Any color you can share with us there?

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah, we don't know the near term for the Asia Pacific customers as we always do. So give me a number. In the near term, we cannot control our customers' buying pattern, their allocations, and this year. But overall, this is a multi-billion-dollar market segment. We are getting ready for these next few years' growth, and it's clearly a multi-billion-dollar opportunities. But for us, in the near term, this year could be even or maybe slightly up. Okay, this is our best guess. We don't know.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, just to add a little bit of color to how we see the year rolling out, we believe that we will be off to a slower start in the first half of the year. But as the year develops, the customer base is expected to broaden, as hyperscalers launch their new products. So we have multiple product ramps with both existing customers as well as with these new hyperscalers. So as Michael just said, we believe it's likely to be a flattish year, but we believe that from a quality and supply availability perspective, we're in very good shape.

Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Could be up too. So we don't know.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, exactly.

Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

That's fair. Congrats again on the results.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Genevieve Cunningham (Head of Investor Relations)

Our next question is from Rick Schafer of Oppenheimer. Rick, your line is now open.

Rick Schafer (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Yep, thanks, guys. I'll add my congratulations. If I could maybe tack on to the back of Tore's question, I was wondering if you could update us maybe just to give us a sense of the number of accelerator projects that you expect to ramp this year and into 2026, just to kind of get a sense. I heard you loud and clear, Michael, that this is a billion-dollar-plus TAM. I'm just trying to get a sense of how many.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Multiple billion dollars.

Rick Schafer (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Multiple billion.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Don't be shy about that.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

We're not shy on that. We don't want to lose that. Okay.

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

Hey, Rick, this is Tony. I'll jump in. I think what we want to say is we're engaged across all the hyperscalers, but what you heard Michael say was that the exact timing of the ramp is very difficult for us to call. So I don't think we want to put a specific number of customers or exact ramp times out there other than saying that we're engaged broadly across them. As Bernie said, we believe that's going to scale through the second half.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

I can give you an example, and we foresee that these projects are ramping in 2022, 2023. You look at the automotive side, we said we have a lot of design wins, and we said all these are going to ramp up. We have a lot of inventories, and 2023 is kind of a flattish year. Our customer delayed their launch, so 2023 affected us, but I keep saying we don't really care, and as long as we have a product and are designing their new product, especially, and we're turning that into revenue ±12 months, 18 months.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

And if I could just add to Michael's comments there, when you look at automotive, it was delayed not just in 2023, but also in the first half of 2024 against what we had built inventory and against our expectations. But now, as you can see, it's very solidly on track with two consecutive quarters of growth. And likewise, you could apply that same formula to what we're seeing in the communications with the release of the fiber optics in the data center. So we have the technology, but we're intersecting and ramping in the market. A lot of that's a little bit out of our control.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Even directly AI powers. We have so many projects working with multiple hyperscaler companies. And so we cannot tell which one is we're ramping first and what the magnitude of ramping. Just we get the supply chain ready, get our quality testing facility ready to get these to receive these revenues, turn into these revenues. And so the timing, we care less.

Rick Schafer (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thanks for all that color, Michael. You know, it's funny you're talking about auto because that's my second question, if I could. You know, the EV conversion to 48-volt power and to 800-volt batteries is sort of set to ramp this year, I believe. And I know you mentioned in the prepared remarks, Bernie, you know that you're going to be shipping power isolation content second half, I think I heard you say. And I believe EV is about three quarters of your auto business. So I just wondered if you could talk us through sort of what your potential content, given all those changes, right, all these additional drivers, you know, what your content looked like last year or potential content per vehicle versus what it looks like in 2025 with all these new jump balls.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

That's a very good question. And we mentioned about 48-volt system many, many years ago. And particularly for auto now, it became a hot topic. And we have all these products ready. We're designing those new vehicles. And these have a base on 48-volt systems. We can capture a lot. And once their vehicles are ramping up on the market, initially, we'll be another dominant players.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

And I think that this is the rollout in automotive starts with EV, which is quicker to adapt new technologies onto their platform. But we expect it to continue for a multi-year period.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah, again, MPS, again, we provide a 48-volt integrated solutions. And all of these high-power modules are based on the MPS silicon solutions. And those were significantly changed, all these discrete ways of doing across together, the 48-volt solutions. So that definitely sets MPS apart from the rest of our competitor.

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

And Rick, beyond just pure 48-volt, remember what you saw beginning Q3 was designs outside of ADAS start to hit the market. We saw more broad-based growth in the auto segment. And we'd expect that to continue as additional sockets come to market. So I think that's the other dynamic that's happening as well.

Rick Schafer (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. Thanks, you guys.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from Ross Seymore of Deutsche Bank. Ross, your line is now open.

Ross Seymore (Managing Director)

Can you hear me now?

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah. Hi, Ross.

Ross Seymore (Managing Director)

Perfect. Hi there. I just want to revisit the enterprise data side of things, and not to overplay that, but the market share gains and dynamics in the server CPU side of things, has that changed at all? I think everybody knows what's going on with one key customer and the diversification, market share shifts, and those sorts of things, but you guys have other things that are happening as we speak as well, so I really wanted to focus on the dynamics outside of those, not just with the ASIC providers and other GPU providers, but also with the CPU market share and servers. So any update on that would be helpful.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Ross, let me say something else first. Our inventory level and the channel inventory is low. We're going to ramp up. Okay. And the rest is, okay, Bernie wanted to say.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

I didn't know if I had a follow-up on that. It's a very good question. And let me just give you a little bit of what we're seeing. It's a fast-changing landscape. And what I mean by that, it's difficult to offer commentary on enterprise data in these different components. The lines between CPU and GPU are becoming blurry. And in support of both lines of business, we have a lot of standard products. So while we've historically had better visibility in the separation and could track them a little more easily, it's hard for us to make more than just a generalized comment about what direction either market segment's going in.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah, let me add it. We're getting significant shares on the server side. Once you see the server markets start to ramp up, well, the MPS revenue will ramp with it.

Ross Seymore (Managing Director)

Great. I guess as my non-inventory follow-up, on the communication side, you guys did well on that in the second half of the year. It's a little bit choppy still, but can you just give us an idea of the profile of that business? How much is kind of the old comms versus the new comms? And give us a little bit more color on what the growth driver is that gives you the confidence for the year. And I assume it's on the optical side of things, but just a little more details on that would be helpful.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

We're all laughing, and would you say the beginning of the questions?

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

It was comms, right? Ross is what you meant.

Ross Seymore (Managing Director)

Yeah, on the communication side. It's just you guys have been talking about that growing for many, many years, and it finally did last year. But I know there's some legacy pieces and some new pieces. And so I just wanted to try to get some color on the difference between them.

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

Yeah, Ross, I think you kind of hit it when you were asking the question, right? If you look at comms going forward, the area of strength that we've really been calling out is in optical. And we'd expect that to continue as part of the overall data center opportunity that you heard Michael talk about. So I think that's probably the biggest inflection point that you've seen over the past couple of quarters versus the legacy business.

Ross Seymore (Managing Director)

Got it. Thank you.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from Gary Mobley of Loop Capital. Gary, your line is now open.

Gary Mobley (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, guys. Let me extend my congratulations as well. I wanted to start out with a housekeeping question. Were there any greater than 10% customers in fiscal year 2024? And if you can't name the customer, can you at least give us a sense of how big that customer was in the year?

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Certainly. For the three quarters, Q1, Q2, Q3, in our 10-Q, we said that we had two direct customers, which are distributors that were greater than 10%, and that carries through for the full year as well.

Gary Mobley (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. But you can't give us a number that we'll publish in the 10-K in terms of the percentage of revenue from that direct customer?

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Not at this time.

Gary Mobley (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. I tried. All right. I wanted to ask about revenue diversification outside of your traditional power management market. And if I count correctly, there's maybe four shots on goal, and you highlighted some of those in your press release. And that would be data converters, silicon carbide, DSP audio, and battery management systems. So my question is, how big in revenue terms can that be in the fiscal year 2026 timeframe? Or said differently, how much of a growth catalyst can it be on top of what you're producing in traditional power management?

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Traditional power management, they're talking about these are low-voltage things if it's what you mean. And the silicon carbide, of course, to me, is also in the power management. But these are much higher powers, very higher power management. And we don't want to put on the numbers, but these are, again, it's $1 billion, a couple of billion dollar opportunity for all of them for MPS. I don't want to put a timeline on it.

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

And the only thing is, we picked a couple for the script, but we only could put a few in for time. But I think our strategy continues to be plant a lot of seeds in a lot of different areas that can turn into revenue as the market decides what to prioritize.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Oh, that's a good point. And the Ionic, yeah. We had a March 20th, so we have an analyst day. And this time, you come over, you will see a lot of showcase on the MPS new technologies. And these all will contribute in the next few years of growth. And if you want to pin down what is the numbers, I would say that if you look at the past for MPS, what the model is, I don't see any reason we should change, whether faster or slower.

Gary Mobley (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks, guys.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from Quinn Bolton of Needham. Quinn, your line is now open.

Quinn Bolton (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Hey, guys. I'll offer my congratulations as well. I guess, Bernie, Michael, obviously, a very strong start to the year in the March quarter. Your comments about enterprise data certainly sound like that business might be more second half weighted. And so I guess I'm just trying to think, what sort of revenue pattern would you expect through 2025? Is the first half slower, the second half materially stronger? Do you think that you have some puts and takes? And so it's a kind of more linear ramp through the year. Just any sort of thoughts on the shape of revenue through 2025 would be helpful.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So the comment that we made as far as the outlook for the year really looks at the design wins we've secured and an expectation of what is going to be ramping. Keep in mind, though, that particularly in the AI side of enterprise data, that has tended to be very volatile and that we have relatively short lead times as far as when we get hard information or POs for actual delivery. So I think that within the context of what we believe is most likely to happen, we're very secure by saying a flattish year that's weighted to the back half. But how that curve actually plays out over the quarters is to be determined.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah. Let me add it. Bernie said volatile means this industry and this applications, if you will. And it is at the initial ramp. And so you're only involved with a we have a few customers now. And we talked about it before. So we have multiple customers. And they start to ramp. So it's very good for MPS. We focus on the diversifications and even within a single segment.

Quinn Bolton (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Got it. I guess that was going to be my sort of second question, just thinking about the enterprise data segment. Can you just give us a sense of what you're seeing in terms of, one, like-for-like pricing pressure, and then, two, I think some of the newer designs really move away from a silicon-only solution to much more of a module solution. And I assume that those carry much higher dollar content for you. And so do you see as you mix the customer, you ramp some of the new hyperscaler designs, do you think the blended ASP trends in that business, even if you see some like-for-like pricing, can that go higher through the year as these new platforms ramp?

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

MPS are going to stick with our models and our margin models, gross margin model. We provide performance. And if it doesn't fit the MPS business model, we don't take those business. And so far, we're the leading suppliers in silicon as well as power modules. And so this is the reason we, in very short time, in the last 12-24 months, we have engaged with all these hyperscalers. We have all these projects designed in line. And also, we have future products. We have many future products in the development.

Quinn Bolton (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Got it. Thank you, Michael.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from Chris Caso of Wolfe. Chris, your line is now open.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yes, thanks. I guess just to start, I just want to make sure I understood correctly some of the comments. So when you hear about the enterprise data flattish for the year weighted to the back half, and I'm assuming that's the entirety of the enterprise data segment, not just that associated with AI. And maybe you could talk about how you talked about some of the hyperscalers, some of the custom ramps happen in the second half of the year. Is that what's driving that strength in the back half of the year? What's kind of driving that back half weighting?

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Chris, that's an accurate observation. As we look at the ramps for most of the SoCs and some of the tensor processor products that are expected to come out, we've been prototyping those, but the revenue ramps are really weighted to the second half. In addition, some of our existing customers in the AI business in particular have multiple new products that they're ramping, and those will have different demand profiles as well. That's just within the enterprise data. I think another important ingredient is what we've referred to as the trickle-down effect as we see the other applications that are allied to enterprise data or AI specifically in memory, optical, and networking. All three of those are areas for growth as well during 2025.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Right. And I guess as you look at the full year, obviously, from what you guys are seeing and the better than seasonal Q1, I'd say you're starting out a little better than some of the others in this space. What's your thought as you go through the year? I mean, is there any lumpiness with regard to some of the opportunities that are ramping early in the year that we should consider as we go through the year? Or excluding the enterprise data business, do you see revenue kind of on a fairly stable upslope trajectory as you go through the year?

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah. I can tell you something. It's very difficult to say. Surely, you go by year by year. We don't go by year by year. But although we will have to report it year by year. And I'll give you examples. Our large customers start to push out some product, pulling a lot of other ones. So we can't really tell. And other customers, other hyperscalers start to ramp. They're telling us we're going to keep a ramp. Whether the ramp has effectively moved our revenue needles in Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year, we can't tell.

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

Yeah. Maybe the only thing I'd add on Michael's is it just comes back to the focus on what you can control, right? And the organization looking at providing the best products with the best quality. And that's what we can do right now. And as the market then plays through, that will turn into revenue. So I don't think we're trying to get into a quarter-by-quarter debate here, Chris. I think that's how we more landed kind of in a first-half, second-half dynamic at this point.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from Joshua Buchalter of Cowen. Joshua, your line is now open.

Joshua Buchalter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. A couple of times, you've talked about the hyperscale program sort of driving growth more so in the back half of the year. I guess if we compare these sockets to what you've already done in AI on the accelerator side, there's a lot of companies in the analog space that are saying that they have power engagements with ASIC vendors as well. Would you expect the majority of the ASIC programs to be dual-sourced? And I know you're not going to necessarily quantify share, but I'd just be curious to hear how you're seeing the competitive environment in these sockets. Thank you.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Sure. Let me take the first opportunity there. If you look at our most recent track record in the new, and I say new, relatively new AI business, the reason we were able to secure a lead position initially is because of our ability to innovate and our time to market along with our overall performance characteristics. So to the extent that that is valued in these product launches, those are the qualities that give us an opportunity to have a first-mover advantage. But as we've said a couple of times on this call, that when we look at our customers, we don't necessarily control what their decision process is or why. And so again, we lead with our strengths and believe that we're well-positioned, and then we'll see how the numbers turn out towards the end of the year here.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah. You mentioned the second half. You pinned it down on the second half of the ramp. What we mean is in the very near future. It could be Q1 of next year or could be Q3 of this year or even overlapping in Q2. And a lot of things, as I said earlier, and our large customers, some of the push-out, other ones are pulling and pulling very urgently. So we cannot tell.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

I guess to put a punctuating statement, we remain cautiously optimistic, but our momentum is certainly in the right direction.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Oh, that's the professional way to say it.

Joshua Buchalter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

We always get the more professional answers from Bernie. Okay. No, thank you. Thank you both for the color there. As my follow-up, I guess you were kind enough to give sort of a rough outlook for enterprise data growth for 2025. Any more clues you can give us on how you're expecting either at the company level 2025 growth to shake out and any sort of which segments you would expect to be the biggest contributors to growth? Thank you.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Biggest ones? We're thinking there's multiple of them.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Yeah.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

We're multiple of them will ramp in many different segments. Sometimes we pick numbers and it was wrong, but other ones are coming up. We focus on the diversified growth. That is the key strategies we've been playing the same principles for the last 25 years. If this thing doesn't work, then other things will work. That's always our strengths. As long as we bring up the best performance, highest performance product in the market, if this segment slows down for whatever the reasons, other segments will pick up.

Joshua Buchalter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you both, and congrats on the results.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Thank you.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from Will Stein of Truist. Will, your line is now open.

Will Stein (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Let me start with what everyone's been asking about is enterprise data. I think you highlighted, Bernie, that it's going to be down sequentially. Can you give us a little help on the modeling? Because down could be down like 3% or like 30%. Maybe just dimensionalize it a little bit to give us some context, please.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. I think that it'd be really hard. Again, what Michael just said is that the strength of our model is the diversification. And I would probably point to the outlook that we've given in total for Q1 as being a risk profile that we believe we can deliver comfortably against based on what we can see in our backlog and the ongoing ordering patterns. But again, trying to actually stratify with a level of precision on the end market at this point might be difficult.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah. You may be looking for precisions. And the reality is in the business, we go for long-terms. And we go for long-term. It doesn't mean near-term will have uplifting in our revenues.

Will Stein (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Clearly, my ability to model the near-term is problematic. A follow-up, if I can, maybe let me switch gears a little bit. Michael, I think in the past, you talked about having some capability in microcontrollers. Historically, I know that's not a focus or it's not a meaningful part of your revenue as well as I understand. Should we expect that to change? There's so many new products. You talk about silicon carbide power and converters now and DSPs even. Should we expect microcontrollers or any other digital sort of logic technology to become a bigger part of your revenue over time?

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Very good questions, and we don't list out a microcontroller as a standalone standard product that we sell. As a matter of fact, we sell many microcontrollers now. And as I recall, in my mind, I can come up with 12, 13 microcontroller projects that are ongoing. Some of that stuff is shipping. But what we sell, microcontrollers, is on the system level. And as Bernie earlier said in the last field conference, MPS is evolving to a silicon-based solution company. Microcontrollers play a key role. And all these powers, all these other lighting, all these other audios, including power supply, including AIs, they all have microcontrollers in it. And we don't separate the items in the standard microcontroller part. But a lot of, and clearly, also a lot of microcontrollers were integrated. And that's the reason we don't list it apart. This is separately. Okay.

Will Stein (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from William Kerwin of Morningstar. William, your line is now open.

William Kerwin (Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, everyone. Thanks for letting us get a question in here. A lot of good questions so far, so I'll try not to beat any dead horses. But maybe it sounds like, at least in the March quarter, automotive communications seem to be driving some of the growth. So I'm wondering if you could just give a broader view into the demand for those markets for 2025 and your opportunities for share gains in those two?

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Sure. Well, good to hear you in the Q&A, by the way. When you look at the end markets, most of the ones that we have are long design cycles. And automotive probably lends itself to being the most predictive because we secure a design win two to three years for an EV in advance of when it gets launched, or as many as four to five years for a traditional internal combustion. Now, having said that, the timing of those ramps, when the design win comes to market, still remains a question mark. But within the context of six to nine months, we can be reasonably predictive. So in automotive, we see continuation of what's been driving our last two quarters of growth as far as EVs in China.

Those will be supplemented in the second half of the year, more likely by a European OEM that is going to be bringing up an autonomous driving ADAS solution, as well as additional content opportunities in a North American EV company. Then when you look at the communication side, I think that we're very early stages of being able to ramp the revenue opportunities, particularly in fiber optics. We started out with two primary customers, but we expect that customer base to diversify over the year.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

As always the pattern.

William Kerwin (Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah. That's excellent. And then maybe one just on some of the new products that were introduced at the start of the call. Really just which one of these maybe excite you the most? And what are the new markets that you might be able to enter with these that are the most attractive, do you think, from a growth perspective? Thanks.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

The most exciting product we haven't announced yet. Come on to our analyst day.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

March 20th.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

March 20th. And these are equal babies. They all grow should be very same rate.

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

Again, we picked four, but there's many more behind that. So it's hard to pick just one.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Actually, we wanted to have a teaser to make sure we had the best turnout for the investor day.

William Kerwin (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Excellent. Well, we'll wait for more detail in March. Thanks, guys.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

All right. Okay.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question is from Hans Mosesmann of Rosenblatt. Hans, your line is now open.

Hans Mosesmann (Managing Director)

Thanks. Congrats, guys. I'll be quick. What is the split for your enterprise data between AI and non-AI, if that's possible? And I have a follow-up.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Again, I think we already answered that question by saying that those lines are getting blurry. So we really don't have a meaningful way to make that divide.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Our customers will not appreciate it where we disclose those numbers. Our customers have made it very clear.

Hans Mosesmann (Managing Director)

Is non-AI considered memory and optical historically? Just out of curiosity.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Those are in different market segments. Opticals and communication, memories, and storage.

Hans Mosesmann (Managing Director)

Fine. Okay. At the risk of upsetting your customers, if you answer, what is the share between your historical AI customer for this year versus accelerator customers? What's the split? Is it 10/90 or 50/50 or?

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

For this year and at the end of the year, we probably will have a more in the near term where we have more clear pictures, but now we don't, and we are, frankly, as Bernie said, we're not in a position to answer it, and also either by product, they share the same product, and also, our customers don't want us to release these information.

Hans Mosesmann (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you very much.

Moderator (participant)

Our last question is from Joe Quattrocchi from Wells Fargo. Joe, your line is now open.

Joe Quattrocchi (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thanks for taking the questions. Just curious on the notebook strength that you guys are talking about into the first quarter. Wondering what's driving that? Is that strength that you're starting to see pull for AI PCs, or is that channel refill? Just trying to understand some of those dynamics.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

That's a great question. In fact, we believe that a lot of the design wins that we've had in notebooks more recently are tied into new AI product demand. But as I said, it's a little bit of an atypical ramp for Q1. So we really don't have a definitive answer on the why behind it.

Joe Quattrocchi (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it, and then just trying to think about the new projects that are ramping in the second half for enterprise data. Any help that you can provide on just trying to think about the architectures of those solutions that you're shipping to your customers? Are you still largely seeing those as being lateral power opportunities, or are those starting to move to more vertical solutions?

Tony Balow (VP of Finance)

Yeah. I think you heard us talk a couple of times that we're not going to talk specifically to any customer or their particular architectural solution. I think for us, what you see us getting focused on is providing a portfolio of products with the best quality, the best performance, and then the customers can choose what works for them.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

Going back to Michael's earlier comment as far as basically the value proposition of the principles we operate under, what we're most interested in doing and continuing to do is winning sockets.

Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)

Yeah. Our customers particularly do not want us to reveal the lateral power or vertical power.

Joe Quattrocchi (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you.

Moderator (participant)

This concludes our Q&A session. I would now like to turn the webinar back over to Bernie.

Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)

I'd like to thank you all for joining us for this conference call. As a quick reminder, we'll be hosting our Investor Day on March 20th, 2025. Michael and other MPS executives will showcase our vision for innovation and outline key elements of the company's long-term growth strategy. The event will be held at our San Jose offices and will include live presentations, a Q&A session, and demos of our latest solutions for a number of applications and a number of other markets. If you haven't done so already, please email your RSVP to [email protected]. You can also access a live stream of the event on our Investor Relations website. Separately, I look forward to talking to you again during our first quarter 2025 conference call, which will likely be held in May. Thank you and have a nice day.