MaxLinear - Q4 2023
January 31, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings, and welcome to the MaxLinear Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Steve Litchfield, CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer. Thank you, Steve. You may begin.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Thank you, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today in today's conference call to discuss MaxLinear's fourth quarter 2023 financial results. With me today is Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO. After our prepared comments, we will take questions. Our comments today include forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable security laws, including statements relating to our guidance for the first quarter of 2024, including revenue, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin, GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses, GAAP and non-GAAP interest and other expense, and GAAP and non-GAAP diluted share count.
In addition, we will make forward-looking statements relating to trends, opportunities, execution of our business plan, and potential growth and uncertainties in various product and geographic markets, including, without limitation, statements concerning future financial and operating results, opportunities for revenue and market share across our target markets, the effect of seasonality, expected production ramps and timing for the launches of new products, our design win pipeline, demand for and adoption of certain technologies, our serviceable available market, expected customer inventory rationalization, expected incentive programs, the effects of cost reduction measures, and product announcements. These forward-looking statements involve substantial risk and uncertainties, including risk outlined in our risk factor section of our recent SEC filings, including our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2023, which we filed today. Any forward-looking statements are made as of today, and MaxLinear has no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.
The fourth quarter 2023 and fiscal 2023 earnings release is available in the investor relations section of our website at maxlinear.com. In addition, we report certain historical financial metrics, including, but not limited to, gross margin, operating margin, operating expenses, and interest and other expense on both GAAP and non-GAAP basis. We encourage investors to review the detailed reconciliation of our GAAP and non-GAAP presentations in the press release available on our website. We do not provide a reconciliation of non-GAAP guidance for future periods because of the inherent uncertainty associated with our ability to project certain future changes, including stock-based compensation and its related tax effects, as well as potential impairments. Non-GAAP financial measures discussed today are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for comparable GAAP financial measures.
We are providing this information because management believes it is useful to investors as it reflects how management measures our business. Lastly, this call is also being webcast and replay will be available on our website for two weeks. And now let me turn the call over to Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO of MaxLinear.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. In Q4, our revenues were $125.4 million, and non-GAAP gross margin was 61.4%. Our infrastructure end market continues to be the main highlight, growing 30% in fiscal 2023. Entering 2024, we are very optimistic about our infrastructure business and believe that it is firmly poised to grow to an annualized revenue run rate of $several hundred million over the next three years or so. Underpinning our optimism and growth convictions for our entire business is the successful launch of several new innovative products across infrastructure and connectivity, and a robust and growing customer design win pipeline for them.
We expect these new high-value product cycles to drive revenue growth, encompassing high-speed optical data center interconnects, wireless access, cellular networks, enterprise storage accelerators, enterprise Ethernet, and multi-gigabit PON, broadband access, and Wi-Fi connectivity. In the high-speed optical data center infrastructure market, we are increasingly bullish and expect to generate $ tens of millions in revenue this year for our 5nm CMOS Keystone 800Gb PAM4 DSP family. Early-stage revenues have already begun, and new production ramps later in the second half of the year will drive more meaningful run rate growth in 2025. The ongoing adoption of AI in the cloud is providing a strong catalyst for the transition to 800Gb and beyond speeds.
In this high barrier to entry market, our investment in innovation over several years has enabled us to differentiate with a highly competitive and broad portfolio of PAM4 DSPs, which invariably have the best-in-class power consumption and performance across optical transceiver, active optical cables, and active electrical cables. In wireless infrastructure, despite current slowdown in telco 5G wireless access infrastructure spend, there's an expanding global rollout of new millimeter wave and microwave and hybrid backhaul technologies to upgrade wireless transport links from gigabit speeds to tens of gigabits per second data rates. As the only full system solution provider of modems and RF transceivers, we will greatly benefit from the significantly increased silicon content per platform in these new links. We also expect strong customer demand as part of a multi-year upgrade cycle entering 2025.
Additionally, at Mobile World Congress in February end, we'll have new and unique product announcements addressing 5G access remote radio units for both massive MIMO and macro base station solutions. We expect our growing portfolio of wireless backhaul and access infrastructure products to drive significant revenue expansion in the near to long term. Within our infrastructure revenues, an exciting new growth driver is our Panther III series hardware storage accelerators for the enterprise all-flash array and hybrid storage enterprise appliance systems. With the increasing deployments of higher speed, low latency NVMe SSD drives, legacy software-based data compression technology using extremely expensive and power-hungry, high core count CPUs is no longer viable. The scalability and flexibility of the Panther III DPU architecture allows us to deliver 12:1 data reduction, a full suite of security, low power, and CapEx cost reduction, while providing ultra-reliable data protection.
We are in production ramp with a Tier 1 leading enterprise storage appliance maker and expect additional customer product ramps later this year. We expect revenues to double in 2024, with continued strong growth in 2025 and beyond. In Ethernet connectivity, with the recent launch of our new Octal 2.5Gb Ethernet PHY and switch products, we have expanded our addressable market by $300 million to include both the enterprise and small and medium business switch markets, in addition to our traditional gateway and auto markets. Customers are expected to upgrade today's more than 2 billion copper 1Gb Ethernet ports to 2.5Gb Ethernet speeds over time using existing standard Cat5 cabling.
We are seeing exciting design win activity for our solution, including a Tier 1 North American enterprise OEM customer that is expected to ramp to production in the mid-2024. As we look ahead, we believe our Ethernet business could reach $100 million over the next 18-24 months. Turning to broadband, we continue to gain traction in the fiber PON market with new design wins driving our growth. As many of you know, in 2023, we began ramping our single chip integrated fiber PON and 10Gb processor gateway and connectivity solutions with a major Tier 1 North American service provider. In 2024, we expect to begin ramping a new opportunity with a second major Tier 1 North American service provider. This further validates and establishes MaxLinear's competitive positioning in the fiber PON market. In 2023, our PON revenue was approximately $50 million.
We expect to be able to more than double our PON revenues over the next two years. In connectivity, in what is a major milestone, our Wi-Fi 7 solution was both certified and selected by the Wi-Fi Alliance as one of only four certified test bed devices for Wi-Fi 7 interoperability and compliance. Our Wave 700 single chip tri-band Wi-Fi 7 device is an industry first and represents a major step forward for power efficiency, performance, and reduced latency. Even as Wi-Fi 6 and 6E are reaching peak adoption, Wi-Fi 7 is beginning to launch this year in client-side mobile phones and PCs. We expect service providers to follow soon, with their initial rollouts later this year, with adoption peaking in 2-3 years.
For MaxLinear, Wi-Fi 7 has the exciting potential to drive significant ASP growth and higher attach rates in our broadband access platforms versus previous generations. Circumspectly speaking, 2024 is likely to be the start of an exciting period of new product growth and opportunity for MaxLinear. We also expect market headwinds of the past year in broadband and connectivity to likely become tailwinds when customer inventory rationalization winds down. Most importantly, the investments we made in product innovations across our portfolio are beginning to bear fruit and are opening up new and significant revenue opportunities that we expect will drive our growth for many years to come. With that, let me now turn the call over to Steve Litchfield, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer. Steve?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Thank you, Kishore. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $125.4 million, down 8% versus Q3 and down 57% year-over-year. Broadband revenue for the fourth quarter was $34 million, flat versus Q3 and down 66% year-over-year. Connectivity revenue for the fourth quarter was $19 million, up 26% sequentially and down 82% year-over-year. As expected, infrastructure revenue for the fourth quarter was down substantially. Revenue for the fourth quarter for this end market was $32 million, down 37% versus the prior quarter and flat year-over-year, but grew 30% for fiscal year 2023 as a result of solid demand and growing market opportunity. Lastly, our industrial multi-market revenue was $41 million in Q4, up 13% sequentially and down 25% year-over-year.
GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin for the fourth quarter were approximately 54.7% and 61.4% of revenue. The delta between GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin in the fourth quarter was primarily driven by $8.3 million of acquisition-related intangible asset amortization. Fourth quarter GAAP operating expenses were $110.3 million, including stock-based compensation and performance-based equity accruals of $19.5 million combined. Restructuring costs of $10.6 million related to our Q4 workforce reduction and acquisition of integration cost of $1.8 million. Non-GAAP operating expenses in Q4 were $75.7 million, up $0.6 million versus Q3. We expect to see the benefit of our cost reductions starting in Q1 and throughout FY 2024. Non-GAAP operating margin for Q4 2023 was 1%. GAAP interest and other expense during the quarter was $0.9 million.
Non-GAAP interest and other expense during the quarter was $0.8 million. In Q4, cash flow used in operating activities was $16.6 million. We exited Q4 of 2023 with approximately $188 million in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash. Our days sales outstanding for the fourth quarter was approximately 124 days, up from the previous quarter due to shipment linearity. Our gross inventory turns were 1.4, slightly up from Q3 levels. This concludes the discussion of our Q4 financial results. With that, let's turn to our guidance for Q1 of 2024. We currently expect revenue in the first quarter of 2024 to be between $85 million and $105 million. Looking at Q1 by end market, we expect all four end markets to be down quarter-over-quarter.
We expect first quarter GAAP gross margin to be approximately 50.0%-54.0%, and non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 59.5%-62.5% of revenue. Gross margin continues to be stable despite lower unit volumes, with the range being driven by a combination of near-term product, customer, and end-market mix. We expect Q1 2024 GAAP operating expenses to be in the range of $115 million-$125 million. We expect Q1 2024 non-GAAP operating expenses to be in the range of $72 million-$78 million. We expect our Q1 GAAP and non-GAAP interest and other expense to be in the range of $1 million-$2 million. We expect our Q1 GAAP and non-GAAP diluted share count to be approx., approximately 82.3 million each.
In closing, we are excited about our market position and growth drivers for 2024. The product innovations that will drive our success in optical, Wi-Fi, fiber, broadband access, gateways, Ethernet, and wireless infrastructure are all in market today and gaining customer traction. As always, we will continue our strong focus on operational efficiency, fiscal discipline, and shareholder value as we position ourselves for an exciting future. With that, I'd like to open the call for questions. Paul?
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Tore Svanberg with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Yes, thank you. My first, my first question is, so it looks like some of your businesses, especially, you know, broadband connectivity, started stabilizing this quarter. It does sound like you're expecting another step down. So could you just talk a little bit about the dynamics there? Because it's a little bit sort of counterintuitive that they would stabilize, but then take another step down.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Sure, Tore, I'll start, and Kishore might wanna add a little bit. But, so first of all, yeah, so, look, we've been talking about this. I think, you know, we've seen inventory in the channel improve, and so we're seeing some modest improvements. We spoke last quarter about some seasonality and just the simple fact that there is still inventory in the channel and expected to be for the first half of this year. So, so we are getting through it. I think the bigger problems is in the broadband and connectivity side. As we've talked about a little bit, our infrastructure business is going extremely well. We don't have, you know, big inventory overhang in the channel and things slowing down in industrial multi-market.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Very good. And if we now sort of assume that, you know, this is a $400 million business, at least, you know, if you take Q1, that's the run rate of the business. I know that you guys segment by four business units, or, you know, segments, but if we think about that $400 million, how much of that is kind of cyclical versus secular now? Because you clearly have a lot of secular stuff that's growing. You have some great new design wins and optical and so on and so forth. So just trying to understand, you know, if we look at that baseline of, let's say, $100 million a quarter, $400 million run rate, how much of that would be equivalent cyclical versus more secular? I don't know if there's any way you can talk about that.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
I don't know that I can break that out. And honestly, Tore, I think I would go back to reiterate. I mean, we see the problems and where we're seeing the market declines, the inventory in the channels around broadband and connectivity, these other markets are doing reasonably well. We're managing, you know, I mean, there's a little bit of softness on the industrial side, but I would, you know, you're seeing really good performance on the infrastructure side, and that's where we've got you know, lots of new products.
Kishore spoke quite a bit in his portion about some of the newer products in infrastructure, which, you know, are all new product revenues that are in the market, in some cases already have some revenues, and in other cases they're, you know, design wins that are expected to turn into revenues. And so, you know, we certainly expect to come out of this thing stronger, a much better company, and we've got some exciting new products to do that with.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
It's also true in the broadband and connectivity side, right? We talked about our offerings in the new PON product lines and the Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. So what you're seeing right now is really at a place on the broadband connectivity that's, you know, at the bottom. You know, it's all noise right now in terms of what's happening on the bookings and the inventory and so on. So once we recover, we expect that the new product cycles and the new products that we have announced and we have launched will actually pick up the growth, even on the broadband and connectivity side. So I wouldn't discount that there is a, it's a tale of two cities, broadband and connectivity, and then the other ones that are growing nicely.
I think there are growth vectors, even in the broadband and connectivity side, as well as all the strong product launches that are happening on the infrastructure side.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Sounds good. I'll go back in queue. Thank you.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Quinn Bolton with Needham and Company. Please proceed with your question.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. First want to just ask, what are you guys hearing, kind of, from end customers about the effects of the infrastructure bill and matching funds? You know, some of the folks in the broadband space, like Harmonic and Calix, I think, have said they're expecting a very weak first half of calendar 2024, as you know, a lot of these folks are holding off to try to, you know, put as much of their CapEx into the back half of the year, maybe even next year, where they get, you know, one-for-one matching dollars. And so it feels like there's a bit of a shift in CapEx spending to future quarters. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Are you seeing it?
And, I assume that if that activity is probably exacerbating the inventory burn here in the near term, if nobody's spending a lot on the CapEx side.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
I think the way, Quinn, I would answer the question, so obviously we're aware of some of the commentary out around some of the infrastructure bill and the, you know, projected subsidies that kind of come along with that. You know, I think we, look at the end of the day, we're kind of going through this inventory correction. A lot of that's driven is impacted by nearer term or shorter term demands. That's that's clearly been, I'd say, slower than expected, and and so it's kind of dragging as far as getting through this inventory. I think what's exciting for us is that we continue to see, you know, more telcos build out. I mean, they have been aggressive on the CapEx spending.
Some of the second tier, third tier, some of those guys are kind of waiting on subsidies, and so that, you know, it indeed may push, you know, two or three quarters. And I don't think that's entirely surprising, but it definitely doesn't help the recovery.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
You know, the way we look at it is like, you know, what is the order pattern and when it resurrects itself, and how is the inventory burning? The inventory levels are going down. We are beginning to see, make progress and see some bookings start to increase. That has, that has actually been positive. Obviously, the bookings are not necessarily due for Q1 or Q2. They, they spread over the entire year because the lead times are now well established. So, I really don't think that we can map directly from the statements that, at some of these players you mentioned and extrapolate to that our activities. I think what changes in our direction, I think what happens in our direction is really about when that inventory really depletes and, you know, the orders return to some normalcy.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director of Equity Research)
I mean, I guess if that activity is happening, it obviously makes for an extended bottom, which I think you're going through now. But I would think at some point, the snapback would be pretty pretty steep if guys are just holding off, waiting for matching funds. But I guess, you know, right now, I assume lead times are fairly short, and you don't have evidence or strong order activity that would suggest, you know, you start to see a stronger recovery at some point, whether it's Q2 or Q3. Sounds like visibility in broadband and connectivity is still pretty low. Is that right?
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Yes. I think the short-term visibility is one thing, but really, it has to come back strong when the rationalization happens, as we mentioned, and because there will be nothing in the channel to ship, basically, right? If that's the extremity of the behavior of the vendors. So you're absolutely right. And I mean, that sets up a stage for a nice... I don't, I don't like to talk or a tailwind for 2025, if you will, right? Where we get back to being where we legitimately think we are from a, from a company perspective.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Got it. Then just wanted to ask on the infrastructure side. I know you guys, for a quarter or two, have been talking about your Ethernet design wins in the enterprise and SMB space, but I think if I heard the prepared script right, you're talking about a business that could reach $100 million over the next 18-24 months. I just wanted to clarify that you see that level of activity in the Ethernet, because that was. That certainly, if that's right, that was a lot bigger than what I was thinking in terms of your Ethernet opportunity, especially in that kind of time frame.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Absolutely. You know, with the, with products that we are pointing to, very large ASP devices. We have a unique offering. There's no competing offering in that space, in that class of product... and we have good design win pipeline that points to the revenues reaching in that order. And obviously, that revenue includes certain gateway router revenues as well, but a substantial portion is also going to be infrastructure, you know, infrastructure, basically enterprise Ethernet, which is the more exciting part because it provides a nice foundation, but a long-term revenue cycle.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Thank you, Quinn.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Suji DeSilva with Roth MKM. Please proceed with your question. David, is your line on mute?
Speaker 10
Hey. Hello, this is David. Can you hear me?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Yes. Yeah, go ahead, David.
Speaker 10
Sorry, it sounded like I called Suji. All right.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
All right, David.
Speaker 10
No, so just a couple of quick questions here. But, Steve, you guys are going to be down 62% year-on-year at the midpoint of the guidance here. How quickly can we expect to see some of these new products and wins really begin to ramp? And what do you think that contribution will be for this year from the new product side, maybe?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Well, so yeah, you're right. These are big annual declines. I think, you know, as inventory corrects, and I think this is why, you know, a lot of investors, et cetera, kind of pointing to 2025. We've talked a lot about 2025, so you can kind of see some, some normalcy in the business, if you will. But we've talked a lot about what those growth drivers are. I mean, whether they're being optical, our Ethernet business that Kishore just spoke of, our storage accelerators, which we spent a little bit of time talking about, our Wi-Fi business, our PON business, we've been seeing nice growth. We will continue to see growth in all those areas, but but naturally it's not as visible with some of the inventory headwinds that we have.
And so you'll see a lot more of that, that'll be delivered in 2025. But, but a lot of them are in the market, and you will see growth. I mean, optical is a great example where you will see growth this year, from our optical business, and but it'll be much more meaningful in 2025.
Speaker 10
Okay. All right. That's fair. And and I guess if you kind of look across your, your disti and your direct customers, is there any way to size the magnitude of the excesses that are still out there? And I know that the burn rate is also challenging, but just trying to understand how much is out there, and then any way to kind of parse out what the end demand softness relative to what is just inventory excesses that need to be digested there?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Look, I mean, I think I said a little earlier, but I mean, really, that first half of the year is certainly still we've got inventory headwinds. Does that bleed into Q3? I don't know, possibly. But I also think that we'll start to get back to revenue growth as well, even though not, you know, the entirety of this inventory is completely clean out of the channel.
Speaker 10
Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Suji De Silva with Roth MKM. Please proceed with your question.
Suji DeSilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hi, Kishore. Hi, Steve. Can you guys hear me?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Hey, yeah. Hey, Suji.
Suji DeSilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Oh, great, good. So sorry about last time. So, I know, Steve, you guided the 1Q to decline sequentially across all the segments. I'm wondering if you could give us kind of which ones you might expect to decline more or less. Just a ranking would help.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Yeah, I mean, I don't... We're not gonna rank them, and all of them are down. I mean, we're the, you know, if I think a little bit of color, I mean, infrastructure, as we've talked about, the wireless infrastructure business was super strong, kind of the first three quarters, and we had talked about, kind of a two to three quarter lull there as that ramps back up. And so that's kind of going as planned. Optical business is doing exceptionally well. We're seeing, you know, some accelerated orders there, so that's pretty exciting. But again, that's very back-end loaded. So, so first half of the year, you know, we kinda grind higher, and we'll definitely see it pick up quite a bit in Q3 and Q4.
You know, the broadband business and connectivity business, for that matter, I mean, down in Q1, and I think it'll still struggle in Q2. Won't give you a direction, but then we'll, you know, as that inventory clears, we'll start to see some improvements. Industrial multimarket's held up extremely well, but, you know, there's some crosscurrents out there that we definitely expect to see that down in Q1 and then hopefully kind of bounce along the bottom as you get through some inventory and then grow out of that in the back half of the year.
Suji DeSilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Thanks, Steve. And then my other question's on the channel inventory, just some follow-ups from before, prior questions. It just sounds like maybe, Kishore, according to your comments, that some of the guys are looking to take inventory below typical levels, maybe kind of, you know, lean it out. Is that- was that what you were implying in terms of what the posture is of the channel and the customers right now? I just want to make sure I heard that clearly.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Absolutely correct. You know, the bias is toward overcorrection. So the question is, how much inventory is naturally in excess? And we've been talking about in the last earnings call, I expect, you know, I said that maybe another six months of it left. Now, if they go, they lean a little harder on it, then, you know, some bleeding happens in the Q3, as Steve mentioned. But we have enough growth drivers here, especially in the infrastructure, there were, you know, optical revenues did not exist, practically zero in Q4. And now we we have said that we should see $ tens of millions of revenues in in 2024. That means that we're gonna be a healthy growth happening in Q1, and we expect the momentum to continue.
And then we got some other production ramps happening, and that could be a very nice growth driver. So, you know, basically, there's a lot of motion going on, but if you look at my prepared remarks, right, the real big growth opportunities are in terms of product cycle commencements are in optical, right? And then, you know, we have once the telco softening, sort of, recovers, but still on the backhaul, we expect in the latter of the year to revenue to pick up. And then we have our storage accelerators. They were barely any last year, now they're gonna be a pretty strong driver. And then you have Ethernet connectivity and and some new design and ramps that will start in the PON side. So I think I've listed out in the prepared remarks in a sequence of importance.
I think that should provide you color, that the very healthy product cycle ramp, you know, commenced been happening now, that should stand good stead for a few years to come.
Suji DeSilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Thanks, Kishore. Very helpful color. Thanks, Steve.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Yep. Thanks, Eddie.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Christopher Rolland with Susquehanna. Please proceed with your question.
Christopher Rolland (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. So, your commentary, I guess, around PAM4 ramping in mid-2024 and then more next year, can you talk about DSPs versus, you know, selling into AECs, transceivers, AOCs, these kind of special programs that you talked about? Tell us kinda, you know, where where these are are going, and then if you could, what is your value prop? Are you guys faster? Are you lower power? Are you competing from a cost dynamic? How are you differentiating in this market to gain traction? Thanks.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Thanks, Chris. You know, yes, you're absolutely right. The optical is turning a corner here. We've got a few other, few more calls that are in the last phases. Hopefully, we get through that expeditiously. But, like you said earlier, right, if this year we do in the teens to $30-odd million in revenue in optical, we'll be in a very good place next year. And, so we're feeling increasingly bullish. Like I said, that the value proposition is very, very clear, right? It is we are the only 5nm production-ready 800Gb PAM4 DSP in the market, and even for 400Gb PAM4. So naturally, the advantages accrue with it at lower power and and cost, excellence comes from multiple factors.
One is higher levels of integration with integrated laser drivers, and lower power reduces the bill of material costs of the customer's modules. Obviously, performance is a given, and that can be trade-off for power. So so that is the only way to enter this market because being this is our second generation of investment, and differentiation is what drives our, drives our position vis-a-vis incumbents who have been shipping for a while in this marketplace. So having said that, you know, currently the revenues we're speaking about are optical transceivers, and that is easily the biggest part of the market. The next part of the market will be active optical cables. And as I've said before, the active electrical cables, we expect in three years from now to be about 10% of the market.
So and whether the active electrical cables are purely a 100Gb phenomenon, or they even moves into the 200Gb per lambda solutions, that remains to be seen. But as we speak today, active electrical cable is the smallest piece of the market, and in three years from now, we expect it to be about 8%-10% of the overall PAM4 DSP market. And there is not much differentiation between the various markets as far as DSP is concerned, but there are differentiations with respect to the laser drivers and such other analog components for power efficiency between active optical cables and active electrical cables. I hope that gives you sufficient color.
Christopher Rolland (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Yeah. Perhaps as a second one, you brought, MaxLinear probably has the largest peak to trough of all of our covered companies. You know, you've from peak to now trough, I think you've lost 2/3 of that peak revenue. So I'd love to know, just longer term off of this, call it 95 for March, what do you think is a more normalized run rate for you guys, total company over time? And what do you think you're under shipping demand right now? You know, sell-in versus sell-through, you know, including customer inventories. How do you view that? Is it, is it $50 million? Is it significantly higher than that on a quarterly basis? How do you, how do you view that? Thanks.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Chris, let me take up the question, then maybe, Steve, you can add more color here. Firstly, I think you're referring to the 2/3rd effect from the peak, specifically to the broadband business and connectivity business.
Christopher Rolland (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
All businesses, but you were at $280 in June 2022, and you're down to $95.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
... Yeah. So that is on a quarterly basis, annualized, right? Obviously, we expect growth to happen towards the second half of this year. And and that this is our expectation to be a transient phenomenon. Number one, just as we are under shipping demand quite extremely right now in certain parts of the business, we are, then on the flip side is also true that we overship demand during the pandemic period, and that's the reason we are here. So I think the answer would be somewhere in between, right? Naturally, logically, assuming the product portfolio has not changed. Okay, so the legacy portfolio, as you saw, maybe in 2023, mid, let's call it, is, I'm just going to do the math here, $1.1-$700, somewhere in between, right?
That's approximately an $800-$900 million business. Now, looking forward, we got all these new product cycle drivers, infrastructure being one of the most interesting ones, and other, you know, and then recovery in in the and growth in PON business, which is very, very small fraction of the, of that particular revenues looking backwards, we talked about.
You should see the company get back to the billion-dollar range in the next 2-3 years or so, three years or so, which will be true, assuming that we are predicting this, inventory or, you know, drag down phenomenon being extreme, as Quinn pointed out, and that there should be a swift recovery, you know, once people say, "Hey, we need to get back to doing business much more in a healthy manner." So so I think that, we run businesses on a longer cycle basis. We do care about quarterly cadence and improvement. And in that context of things, we're building a fantastic portfolio here to smooth out the quarterly cycle growth looking forward.
Explaining the past, there's only one elephant in the room, and we go about it 1,000 times the last three quarters, which is the inventory hangover. There's no fundamental problem with the product portfolio, nor share losses. In fact, we're adding more robust and market expansive products to our portfolio. So I think you should be rest assured that we- the execution is going very well from a development and product launch perspective.
Christopher Rolland (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Do you, do you guys, hazard a guess on how the difference between sell-in and sell-through for March?
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Yeah, and I won't hazard a guess, but the selling phenomenon, sell-through phenomenon, is again an inventory pile up, right? That's a natural sequence, but to the extent that we are tracking the sell-through right now, it's pretty healthy, which only means that we are under-shipping demand quite significantly, so the inventory is burning down.
Christopher Rolland (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Thanks, Kishore.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Yep. Thank you, Chris.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Tim Savageaux, with Northland Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, good afternoon. Sorry,
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Hey, no problem.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Can you guys hear me?
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Yes.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Sorry. First question on PON. I think you mentioned... Did you mention $50 million in revenue for 2023?
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Yep. Yes.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Yes. Okay. And so I imagine that mix looked a lot different at the beginning of the year than the end, and looks like, you know, that accounts for a quarter of the revenue. You know, would you expect in your Q1 guide for PON to be greater than cable, if you will, if we can define it that way, for the first time ever? And would you expect that to be the case for the whole of 2024, and if so, maybe by what order of magnitude will PON be greater than 50% of broadband revenue? And then I'll follow up.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Yeah. So, Tim, I mean, we talked about in the prepared remarks about that 50. So we've grown nicely, right? Two years ago, we were doing less than $10 million. So two years, we've grown this to $50 million. You know, even in a rough market environment, I acknowledge your point about the timing of it. So certainly the last quarter or so has been tougher. But I guess I would highlight that, you know, we've had a big North America telco ramping last year, so that's exciting. You know, more to come. I mean, we're confident that we can double this business over the next two years. That market also has inventory in the channel, and so we've got to get through some inventory headwinds.
A lot of this product is new product as well, so so that, you know, will will naturally roll out this year and in the back half of this year, particularly, and kind of gives us confidence in, you know, exiting, call it exiting 2025, you know, around that $100 million target that we highlighted.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Seems like it should be more than half in 2024, but I'll leave that be. Follow up on-
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
We didn't say how much it would be in 2024.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
I realize you didn't. I wish you would have.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Okay, I see your point.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
On infrastructure, you know, good growth year this year, obviously driven by wireless, and you're obviously facing some tough comps from the first half of last year, I think, in microwave. So I assume you think infrastructure will continue to grow. My question was gonna be, well, can growth accelerate? And I think that might be a challenge on a percentage basis coming off 30%, but you grew $40 million in absolute dollars in 2023. Can you do that again in 2024?
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
It depends a lot on, you know, how much wireless holds back in the first half of this year, because whatever wireless is giving up, so to speak, in the softness that we are seeing in the telco infrastructure spend, optically will be picking up the slack, the data center business. So I really think it's a mix of factors between, you know, optical, wireless being the two big ones. Ethernet and storage accelerators will definitely be new growth drivers. So I'm hopeful, it's positive relative to last year, but it's on a, what I call a steep edge, so it it could really do better, but we expect definitely flat or better, right, compared to 2023.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Excellent. And last question for me is: to the extent that that makes infrastructure your largest segment in 2024, which, you know, is unlikely to be the case, what are the implications there for gross margins? And do you expect some mix-related uplift in margins as a result of that? And that's, that's it for me.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
So, you're absolutely right in identifying that infrastructure is higher gross margins. And so as infrastructure becomes a bigger part of the portfolio and continues to grow, yes, we will see gross margins improve. I think about gross margin, you know, puts and takes in 2024, I mean, look, we're gonna see some challenges in the first half of the year for sure, as we kind of work through with the lower revenue numbers, some modest pricing pressures. I mean, typically that's not a big portion of our business, but, you know, in these downturns it can be a little tougher. All that being said, you know, very confident that, as infrastructure grows as a percentage of the business, that we will certainly see, you know, movement back towards that kind of mid-60s point that, that we've highlighted.
Tim Savageaux (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, thanks.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Ananda Baruah (Senior Equity Analyst)
Hey, guys. Yeah, thanks. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Yeah, just.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Hey, Ananda.
Ananda Baruah (Senior Equity Analyst)
Quick ones, I guess. Hey, Steve. Hey, Kishore. I guess the first one, Kishore is, and, you know, Steve as well. Any context you can provide-- This is really on the 400G and 800G solutions. Any context you can provide on where you are with qualifications, and I guess, you know, anything you can provide on how it is you think about your qualification op-- Like, I guess really the TAM, you know, your TAM opportunity, qualification TAM opportunity, you know, kind of over the long term, in that business. And then I have a quick follow-up also.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
So you're referring to the optical, PAM4 data center business. Really speaking, we talked about, you know, all reports indicate with with some level of uncertainty and what this all AI phenomenon does in terms of exploring the market to be bigger. They expect in three years from now, the business about 40 million units or so of DSP, you know, transceivers being sold, which is PAM4 DSPs, and that's about anywhere, let's assume, over $1.5 billion of addressable silicon. We plan all our activities around 20%-25% market share of the business, but that entire business is composed of two components. One is the legacy, you know, 200 gig, 400 gig PAM4 DSPs, and 800 gig PAM4 DSPs.
Our expectation is 60% of that business. Let's call it close to $1 billion of addressable SAM in three years from now. And we plan that a good victory would be for us to have 20% of that business, 20%-25% of the business in the first phase. So I think from that, you can extrapolate that the design win pipeline should, from a bottom-up basis, should be align to the top line expectations, give or take a year. So you're looking at that ultimately, how big can our optical business be? And in this current generation of product offerings, we expect it to be anywhere between $150 million-$300 million of revenue, right?
Ananda Baruah (Senior Equity Analyst)
Yeah. That's a lot of really good context, Kishore. Yeah, no, that's awesome.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Good.
Ananda Baruah (Senior Equity Analyst)
I appreciate that. I'll do follow-ups on the call back in that regard. Let me just ask you a quick, how is linearity through the quarter, the December quarter? And I guess, you know, you're a month in here, you gave guidance, and is there a meaningful shift in linearity? I mean, I guess, you know, it really is the guidance a product of what you saw entering this quarter, or was there some, you know, some evidence of softening, you know, through the end of the December quarter? And that's it for me. Thanks.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Yeah, Ananda, so I don't think, I don't think we were surprised by the quarter. We knew that it would be somewhat back-end loaded. We had a fair amount of backlog going into the quarter, and there's certainly some uncertainty around that. I don't think that it deteriorated, you know, throughout the quarter by any means. It felt kind of as expected.... Clearly, Q1 was down probably a little more than where we thought it would be, but I also think it's kind of prudent, given the, you know, kind of the outlook in the industry, and we get through this inventory downturn. So, so yeah, I mean, linearity in the quarter was tough. You know, I think the, the things that we look to, I mean, what are those new demand drivers?
What are the bookings looking like? You know, we're seeing some, some decent improvements there. People are getting through the inventory, and so so those are the encouraging signs that we see, and even speaking to the first whatever month of the year, as we start to see those, those signs improve.
Ananda Baruah (Senior Equity Analyst)
Awesome. That's, that's super helpful, Steve. Thanks.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Sure. Sure, no problem.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Tore Svanberg with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Yeah, thanks. I just had a few sort of housekeeping ones. So maybe on that last topic, in the DSO, obviously very back end load, back end loaded quarter. But is that also function just of the really short lead times? And, you know, is there a chance that maybe customers, even now, given the short lead times, that this quarter can have a very similar profile, meaning, you know, they will order a lot at the end of the quarter?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
I definitely think that's the case. I mean, this even speaks to Kishore's comment about, you know, how the industry overreacts. You know, we've seen customers come in with expedites, and so what happens during these times is, you know, in some cases, they've got a lot of inventory out there, but yet they don't have the right inventory, and that's what I think what we've seen in a lot of cases over a lot of industries, a lot of customers, and rather than order it ahead of time in proper lead times, they're waiting to the end, hoping that they get product at the last minute. So I wouldn't be surprised that we continue to see that in the current quarter.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Very good. And Steve, on the OpEx initiatives that you've done, it doesn't sound like, you know, there will be a big impact in Q1. So should we assume that this will have more of an impact than in Q2 and beyond?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
So yeah. So we, as I talked about, in the previous call, we did take some actions on the OpEx front. They were fairly meaningful, offsetting kind of existing spend. We also had a number of NRE dollars that we had that were contra R&D expenses, and they, they will be declining next year. So the actual cut was fairly sizable. But I think that's what you would typically see from MaxLinear, you know, during these downturns. We're definitely dialing back the spend. I do expect OpEx to come down throughout the year. Keep in mind, Q1 also has, you know, payroll taxes, bonuses, things like that, that get rolled into the first quarter of the year, so it's always a little bit higher.
We also have more restructuring costs that are not expected to come out until the end of Q1 or the mid part of Q1. And so, yeah, I certainly see further benefits from actions already taken.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Great. Just so I know, the sort of the newer product ramps, so if I sort of caught this correctly, I think you said the PAM4 DSP business being could potentially be between mid-teens and $30 million this year. Did I hear that right?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
I think that's. We don't have an official guide. That is exactly what Kishore said. I think that's in the ballpark of of our expectations.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Got it. And Panther III, I think you expect that business to double. Would Panther III be sort of similar numbers like Optical DSP or smaller?
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
In the range.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Got it. Perfect. Thank you, guys.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Thanks, Tore.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question is from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your question.
Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Well, hi, guys. Thanks for getting me in here. I guess I'll ask a question on the fiber business. You talked about it being, I think, $50 million last year, doubling within a couple of years here, and talked about a second kind of tier one operator in the U.S. ramping up here. To what degree are the two major North American operators you talked about kind of driving that business to doubling in a couple of years? Is it concentrated or not? And is this mostly a North American kind of customer base? Do you expect to expand, expand geographically within that as well?
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
So, so we've talked a lot about the North America folks. I mean, they're, they're definitely newer adopters. They're also working on Wi-Fi 7, so even future platforms we're already working on. We do have certainly plenty of opportunities in Europe, as well, as those guys kind of transition out of DSL into fiber. So we have a number of opportunities there. Those one or two customers aren't the only ones. We also have some Tier 2 guys in North America that are driving revenues and have been driving revenues, and I would expect that to continue this year and into 2025.
Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, fair enough. Follow up on the topic of DSP here in context, and I think it's been asked by a couple other people here earlier today about the goal of getting to a 20% share in this business over time. As you've gone through the qualifications, and I think you've mentioned some still ongoing here for ramping later this year or next year, are we on that track, Kishore? Your kind of your expectation of getting to that 20% share goal within a few years, feeling pretty good about that? Still think some things to go. Maybe just kind of comment on how well that's coming into play.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Well, you know, yes. I mean, we said for the first time, initial early-stage revenues are bigger now. And, you know, and then, you know, we said there are new ramps in the second half. Those are the ones pending the calls happening. If if both were to play out, then the numbers would work out, and those ramps alone should get you into the ballpark in the three-year window we talked about. So, and, you know, so getting to the 20% has got some noise around it in terms of sometimes it really is the end customer ramp slope rather than whether we get, whether we get that share or not, is our expectations. So if we hit our this year's numbers in the vicinity of the numbers I spoke about, I think that's a reality that's going to play out.
Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, fair enough. That's all from me, guys. Thank you.
Steve Litchfield (CFO and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer)
Great. Thanks, Richard.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the floor back over to Kishore Seendripu for any closing comments.
Kishore Seendripu (CEO)
Oh, thank you. In closing, I would like to say we're excited about our market position and new product cycle growth drivers that are beginning to happen in 2024, and we expect those, those launches to continue to 2025. The product innovations that will drive our success in optical, Wi-Fi, fiber, broadband access, gateway, Ethernet, wireless infrastructure, they're all in the market today, and, you know, and and are being fueled by our customer traction and design win momentum. As always, we will continue to focus strongly on our operational efficiency, fiscal discipline, and creating shareholder value as we position ourselves for an exciting, exciting future as these products really reach their full potential in the marketplace. With that, I would like to open the call to questions. Sorry.
With that, this quarter, we'll be participating in the Susquehanna Technology Conference in New York on February 29th, the JMP Technology Conference in San Francisco on March 4th, the Loop Capital Conference in New York on March 12th, the Roth Capital Growth Conference and Data Point on March 18th. Thank you all for joining us today, and look forward to speaking with you again soon.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.